PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 


-PBOGRESS   IN   THE 
HOUSEHOLD* 


BY 


LUCY  MAYNARD  SALMON 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
f  re&*,  Cambribge 
1906 


X 


COPYRIGHT   1906  BY   LUCY  MAYNARD  SALMON 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  October  iqcb 


APOLOGIA 

IN  1897  the  author  of  these  sketches  pub- 
lished a  book  entitled  "Domestic  Service." 
It  was  an  attempt  to  consider  certain  his- 
torical and  economic  aspects  of  a  common 
occupation  and  its  aim  was  to  induce  others 
to  investigate  by  scientific  processes  a  neg- 
lected field  of  inquiry.  It  distinctly  dis- 
claimed any  and  all  attempts  to  square  the 
circle  by  proposing  a  plan  to  do  away  with 
all  difficulties  in  the  present  condition  of 
household  service. 

The  book  was  not  one  of  "the  six  best 
sellers"  of  the  season,  it  was  never  dupli- 
cated by  a  public  library,  and  it  never 
secured  a  lodgment  at  the  Tabard  Inn. 
A  modest  second  edition,  not  yet  exhausted, 
represents  its  present  rating  in  the  authors' 
"  Bradstreet's."  The  book  was  a  disappoint- 
ment to  many  housewives  who  had  noted 


1 G4628 


vi  APOLOGIA 

its  appearance  because  they  had  hoped  to 
find  in  it  a  sovereign  remedy  for  all  domes- 
tic ills.  Instead  of  that  they  found  only 
rather  repellant  footnotes,  statistical  tables, 
appendices,  and  bibliographies.  "What 
connection,"  they  probably  asked,  "exists 
between  the  far-away  fact  that  there  is  one 
domestic  employee  to  every  one  hundred 
and  fifty-six  inhabitants  in  Oklahoma  and 
the  near-at-hand  fact  that  there  is  a  dearth 
of  good  cooks  in  Pantopia?"  But  Moses 
Coit  Tyler,  beatissima  memoria,  once  in- 
structed a  class  of  college  seniors  about  to 
begin  the  study  of  certain  works  in  English 
literature  that  the  initial  step  in  all  literary 
criticism  was  to  find  the  author's  object  and 
to  judge  him  by  his  success  in  attaining  that 
object;  that  an  artist  who  intends  to  paint 
a  landscape  must  be  judged  by  his  success 
in  landscape  painting,  and  not  criticised 
because  the  landscape  is  not  a  figure  piece. 
To  the  charge  therefore  that  a  book  of 
three  hundred  odd  pages  contained  no 
panacea  with  virtues  attested  by  hundreds 


APOLOGIA  vii 

of  housekeepers  whose  domestic  ills  had 
been  cured  by  its  application,  the  apolo- 
getic answer  might  be  made  that  the  writer 
professed  to  be  only  a  seeker  after  facts, 
not  a  domestic  physician,  —  she  therefore 
craved  judgment  on  the  facts  collected, 
not  on  the  cure-all  unsought  and  therefore 
unexploited. 

But  the  author  had  secretly  craved  a 
hearing  from  the  economists,  although 
conscious  that  she  was  not  one  of  the  guild 
and  therefore  might  be  open  to  the  charge 
of  trespassing  on  the  domain  of  others.  She 
had  also  secretly  hoped  for  a  hearing  from 
her  fellow-workers  in  the  field  of  history, 
although  conscious  that  the  proportion  of 
history  to  economics  in  the  book  was  in 
inverse  ratio.  Gaining  admission  to  the 
salon,  however,  does  not  prevent  the  work 
of  an  amateur  from  being  "skyed,"  and 
"Domestic  Service"  was  hung  above  the 
line.  To  the  economists  whose  attention 
may  have  been  called  to  the  book,  it  doubt- 
less seemed  unreasonable  that  one  who 


viii  APOLOGIA 

had  apparently  always  been  connected 
with  work  in  history  should  meddle  with 
economics;  to  the  historians,  it  probably 
seemed  apostasy  to  wander,  even  for  a 
moment,  from  the  path  of  history.  Ergo 
mea  apologia. 

In  September,  1887, 1  became  associated 
with  Vassar  College  with  the  understand- 
ing that  I  was  to  give  instruction  in  history 
and  economics.  The  work  in  history 
proved  unexpectedly  heavy  and  it  was 
therefore  necessary  for  me  to  defer  taking 
up  the  work  in  economics  until  the  follow- 
ing year.  The  same  conditions  existed  for 
three  successive  years  and  I  then  definitely 
abandoned  all  thought  of  undertaking 
regular  work  in  economics.  But  although 
unable  to  carry  out  all  that  had  been  ex- 
pected, it  seemed  possible  to  make  some 
compensation  and  therefore  at  the  end  of 
the  first  year  an  investigation  of  domestic 
service  was  planned.  A  series  of  schedules 
was  drawn  up  and  these  were  distributed 
to  the  members  of  two  successive  classes 


APOLOGIA  ix 

graduating  from  Vassar  College.  The  pub- 
lication of  the  results  of  the  investigation 
was  delayed  in  order  to  incorporate  with 
them  certain  returns  of  the  United  States 
Census  of  1890  and  these  were  not  available 
until  late  in  the  year,  1896. 

A  second  explanation  may  be  needed 
concerning  the  choice  of  the  subject.  A 
residence  in  several  communities  differing 
somewhat  widely  in  geographical  location 
and  in  industrial  conditions  had  disclosed 
the  fact  that  in  every  place  the  demand  for 
capable  household  employees  was  greatly 
in  excess  of  the  supply,  largely,  it  was  com- 
monly believed,  because  in  each  place  the 
conditions  were  "peculiar."  These  unusual 
and  peculiar  conditions  were  the  competi- 
tion of  factories,  the  competition  of  shops, 
the  loneliness  of  farm  life,  the  loneliness 
of  a  great  city,  the  inaccessibility  of  sub- 
urbs, the  heat  of  the  Western  prairies,  the 
dampness  of  the  sea-shore,  the  life  of  a 
college  town,  and  numerous  variants  of 
these  general  principles.  All  of  the  condi- 


x  APOLOGIA 

tions  that  most  attract  to  a  place  other 
residents  and  all  the  conditions  most  favor- 
able to  other  occupations  seemed  to  be 
always  attended  with  fatality  in  the  case 
of  domestic  employees.  But  as  the  union 
of  the  seven  colors  of  the  rainbow  forms 
white  light,  was  it  possible  that  all  these 
peculiar  conditions  could  be  reduced  to  a 
single  fundamental  cause  that  should  ex- 
plain the  discrepancy  between  demand 
and  supply  ? 

Another  consideration  in  favor  of  select- 
ing domestic  service  as  a  reasonable  subject 
for  investigation  lay  in  the  accessibility  of 
the  material.  Every  household,  whether 
with  or  without  domestic  employees,  could 
add  its  contribution  to  the  inquiry.  More- 
over, in  an  age  that  collects  everything 
from  baggage  tags  and  cigar  ribbons  to 
old  china  and  old  masters,  could  not  a  zeal 
for  collecting  be  turned  in  the  direction  of 
collecting  the  hitherto  untabulated  experi- 
ences of  different  households  ? 

But  it  is  true  that  while  the  material  was 


APOLOGIA  xi 

accessible,  it  was  not  on  that  account  neces- 
sarily procurable,  and  the  investigation 
was  undertaken  with  some  realization  of 
the  difficulties  to  be  encountered.  Yet  if, 
deferring  to  the  example  of  the  British 
"Who  's  Who,"  carpentry,  cabinet-making, 
mountaineering,  gardening,  spectroscopy, 
and  animal  chemistry  are  by  some  con- 
sidered as  recreations  while  to  others  they 
would  imply  tasks  difficult  of  achievement, 
could  not,  for  college  women,  this  collection 
of  material  be  classed  as  recreation,  al- 
though to  others  it  might  seem  a  burden- 
some task? 

It  is  possible  that  another  element  may 
more  or  less  consciously  have  been  a  factor 
in  determining  the  choice.  College  educa- 
tion is  not  even  yet  universally  accepted 
as  necessary  and  desirable  for  women.  If 
Society  should  in  a  sense  expect  an  apology 
from  college  women  for  having  removed 
themselves  from  general  society  and  passed 
four  years  in  college  halls,  could  not  that 
apology  take  the  form  of  making  some 


xii  APOLOGIA 

small  contribution  to  a  domestic  question 
even  though  those  who  rendered  the  quasi- 
apology  did  not  altogether  recognize  its 
necessity  ? 

Another  consideration  akin  to  this  lies 
in  the  frequent  assumption  by  Society  that 
all  women  marry.  Cold,  enduring  statis- 
tical tables,  as  well  as  observation,  go  to 
show  that  there  is  an  error  in  this  assump- 
tion, and  when  this  fact  is  pointed  out, 
Society,  forgetting  that  there  are  some  who 
would  but  cannot,  and  others  who  can 
but  will  not,  attributes  the  discrepancy 
between  theory  and  reality  to  college  edu- 
cation for  women.  If  a  few  college  women 
could  add  something  to  our  knowledge  of 
how  household  affairs  are  conducted,  would 
that  contribution  serve  to  atone  for  both 
voluntary  and  involuntary  neglect  of  matri- 
mony? 

But  an  apology  implies  not  only  an 
explanation  of  the  past  but  a  promise  for 
the  future, — the  erring  one  must  err  no 
more  if  absolution  is  to  be  given.  The 


APOLOGIA  xiii 

economist  may  pardon  the  poacher,  but 
he  must  poach  no  more.  The  historian 
may  forgive  the  one  who  has  wandered 
from  the  fold,  but  the  wanderer  must  in 
future  remain  within  the  pale.  Yet  how 
shall  the  collector  of  experiences  be  diverted 
from  his  diversion  of  collecting?  The 
collector  of  old  mahogany  depletes  his 
bank  account  and  turns  his  modest  dwell- 
ing into  a  veritable  second-hand  shop,  but 
still  his  pony  chaise  is  tied  before  every 
farmhouse  that  has  advertised  an  auction 
sale  of  household  effects.  The  lawyer 
whose  country  estate  produces  green  peas 
that  yearly  cost  him  five  dollars  a  peck, 
cheerfully  proclaims  that  it  pays  to  be  a 
gentleman  farmer.  The  New  York  mer- 
chant hunts  in  Montana  and  charges  up 
to  profit  and  loss  the  expressage  on  the 
game  secured.  The  luxuries  of  one  are  the 
necessities  of  another,  the  recreations  of 
one  are  laborious  occupations  for  his  neigh- 
bor, a  habit  once  formed  holds  its  victim 
in  an  ever-tightening  grasp.  If  then,  in 


xiv  APOLOGIA 

spite  of  apology  and  all  that  it  implies, 
the  collector  of  experiences  still  accumu- 
lates much  that  to  others  may  be  of  little 
practical  benefit,  if  she  still  indulges  in 
what  her  friends  deem  an  extravagant 
luxury,  if  she  still  finds  her  recreation  in 
what  others  may  consider  an  onerous 
pursuit,  if  the  habit  once  formed  of  con- 
necting with  the  present  the  facts  and 
experiences  of  the  past  cannot  apparently 
be  broken  off,  if  at  times  she  still  poaches 
and  still  wanders,  she  will  once  more  claim 
indulgence  if  perchance  there  be  any  to 
grant  it.  It  has  been  in  anticipation  of  this 
indulgence  that  these  sketches  are  re- 
printed. If  they  seem  slight,  it  is  hoped 
that  behind  the  shadow  will  be  found  the 
substance  of  a  great,  and  still  unsettled 
problem.  The  hope  that  lies  still  beyond 
is  that  the  household  may  in  time  to  come 
be  recognized  as  a  legitimate  field  for 
scientific  investigation. 


CONTENTS 

I.   RECENT  PROGRESS  IN  THE  STUDY  OF  DO- 
MESTIC SERVICE  .....       1 
'  II.    EDUCATION  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD          .         .     35 

III.  THE   RELATION  OF   COLLEGE  WOMEN   TO 

DOMESTIC  SCIENCE       .         .         .         .51 

IV.  SAIREY  GAMP  AND  DORA  COPPERFIELD       .     81 
/     V.   ECONOMICS    AND     ETHICS    IN     DOMESTIC 

SERVICE 93 

VI.   "  PUT  YOURSELF  IN  HIS  PLACE  "         .         .  121 

VII.   OUR  KITCHEN 133 

VIII.   AN  ILLUSTRATED  EDITION          .         .         .145 
IX.   THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  .  159 


The  author  takes  pleasure  in  acknowledging  the  courtesy  of  The 
Atlantic  Monthly  for  permission  to  print  the  chapter  on  ".Recent  Pro- 
gress in  the  Study  of  Domestic  Service;  "  of  the  New  England  Magazine 
for  that  on  "Education  in  the  Household;"  of  the  Boston  Cooking 
School  Magazine  for  the  chapter  on  "Sairey  Gamp  and  Dora  Copper- 
field;"  of  The  Chautauquan  for  that  on  "Economics  and  Ethics  in  Do- 
mestic Service; "  of  The  Outlook  for  that  entitled  "Put  Yourself  in  his 
Place;"  of  the  Craftsman  for  the  chapter  on  "Our  Kitchen;"  and  of 
The  Forum  for  that  on  "The  Woman's  Exchange."  The  author  also 
acknowledges  the  kind  permission  of  The  Macmillan  Company  to  re- 
print several  passages  from  her  work  on  Domestic  Service. 


RECENT  PROGRESS  IN  THE  STUDY 
OF  DOMESTIC  SERVICE 


RECENT   PROGRESS   IN   THE 
STUDY    OF   DOMESTIC   SERVICE 

A  LADY  recently  called  at  the  house  of  a 
friend  who  answered  in  person  the  ring  at 
the  door.  With  careworn  expression  and 
flurried  manner  she  apologized  for  the  con- 
fusion that  apparently  reigned  in  the  house, 
saying : 

"My  parlor  maid  is  upstairs  ill,  —  not  ill 
enough  to  go  to  the  hospital,  too  ill  to  work, 
too  far  from  home  to  go  there,  yet  needing 
attention  from  me.  My  waitress  is  having  a 
fit  of  the  sulks,  and  I  have  sent  her  out  to  do 
an  errand  and  get  some  fresh  air.  The  cook 
is  just  now  not  on  speaking  terms  with  her 
husband,  —  the  coachman, — and  is  seeking 
a  divorce,  so  that  one  or  the  other  must  go. 
The  footman  came  home  drunk  last  night, 
and  had  to  be  discharged  this  morning. 
My  house  is  at  sixes  and  sevens,  my  hus- 
band lunched  downtown,  my  mother  has 


4          PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

taken  the  children  and  the  nursery-maid 
home  with  her,  guests  arrive  this  evening, 
and  I  have  spent  the  day  in  a  vain  search 
for  help  in  the  house.  I  belong  to  a  club 
studying  household  economics,  and  have 
allowed  it  to  turn  a  search-light  on  all  my 
household  affairs  in  the  interests  of  society 
at  large.  I  am  now  ready  to  call  a  halt,  to 
refuse  to  have  my  domestic  arrangements 
considered  a  hunting-ground  for  theorists, 
to  pronounce  all  such  clubs  vain  mockeries, 
snares,  and  delusions,  inventions  of  the 
enemy  for  squandering  time,  and  showing 
the  bitter  contrast  between  abstract  theory 
and  concrete  reality.  The  only  club  I  am 
interested  in  must  provide  on  tap  maids 
who  never  get  ill  or  sulky,  cooks  without 
a  temper,  and  coachmen  and  footmen  of 
unimpeachable  habits." 

It  is  possible  that  such  conditions  are  not 
confined  to  "the  uninhabited  districts  west 
of  Schenectady,"  and  that  elsewhere  there 
may  be  despairing  housekeepers  ready  to 
cry  out  against  all  serious  study  of  domestic 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC  SERVICE  5 

questions,  because  such  study  has  not  yet 
had  an  immediate  and  practical  bearing  on 
the  management  of  their  individual  house- 
holds. It  is,  indeed,  not  improbable,  for 
there  is  in  every  clime  the  tradition  of  a 
time  when  household  helpers  were  abun- 
dant, competent,  and  cheap,  —  a  golden  age 
when  harmony  reigned  in  the  household 
and  domestic  discord  was  unknown.  Has 
this  peaceful  condition  been  rudely  broken 
up  by  the  meddlesome  interference  of  do- 
mestic busy-bodies?  Has  progress  been 
hindered  by  the  club  studying  household 
economics,  by  the  investigator  seeking  for 
facts,  by  the  theorist  trying  to  square  the 
ideal  with  the  real,  and  by  students  of  social 
conditions  anxious  to  explain  the  present  by 
the  past  ?  Is  the  only  remedy  for  present 
ills  the  suppression  of  all  discussion,  since 
discussion  breeds  contempt  and  unhappi- 
ness  ?  Is  the  club  to  revert  to  Browning, 
the  investigator  to  confine  himself  to  the 
comparatively  safe  field  of  ancient  history, 
the  theorist  to  live  in  the  future,  and  the 


6          PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

student  of  social  conditions  to  content  him- 
self with  flower  missions  and  soup-kitchens  ? 
If  it  can  be  shown  that  conditions  are  worse 
than  they  have  ever  been  before,  and  that 
discussion  and  investigation  are  responsible 
for  this  deterioration,  then  assuredly  the 
club  should  change  the  field  of  its  activity, 
and  all  discussion  of  the  household  affairs 
should  cease. 

But  the  immediate  dissolution  of  the 
club  studying  household  economics  is  not 
imminent.  The  premises  on  which  its 
detractors  base  their  criticisms  are  false, 
and  hence  the  conclusions  deduced  from 
these  premises  are  illogical  and  unreason- 
able. All  literature  goes  to  show  that  an 
ideal  condition  of  domestic  service  exists 
and  has  existed  only  in  the  castles  of 
Spain.  And  recent  literature  and  recent 
legislation  do  show  that  some  little  pro- 
gress has  been  made  in  the  study  hof  do- 
mestic service  as  an  occupation,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  individual  housekeepers 
still  have  and  always  will  have  trials  and 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC   SERVICE  7 

perplexities  that  at  times  seem  almost 
overwhelming.  The  Hudson  empties  its 
waters  into  the  ocean,  yet  twice  each  day 
the  mightier  force  of  the  ocean  tide  turns 
the  current  back  upon  itself,  —  in  winter 
it  bears  upstream  the  moving  mass  of  ice, 
and  in  summer  it  makes  its  overbalancing 
power  felt  almost  to  the  very  source  of 
the  great  river. 

The  individual  housekeeper  feels  only 
the  force  of  the  household  current  that 
bears  her  helpless  to  her  destination,  —  she 
forgets  the  still  stronger  force  of  society 
that  makes  itself  felt  over  and  beyond  that 
of  the  individual  home. 

In  balancing  the  accounts  of  domestic 
service  and  in  asking  what  has  been  ac- 
complished in  the  past  ten  years  in  the  di- 
rection of  improvement,  it  must  be  frankly 
said  at  the  outset  that  it  is  probably  just 
as  difficult  to-day  to  secure  good  household 
employees  as  it  was  ten  years  ago,  —  per- 
haps even  more  difficult;  that  wages  are 


8          PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

probably  even  higher  than  at  that  time; 
that  the  service  rendered  is  no  more  effi- 
cient; that  recommendations  are  no  more 
reliable;  that  cooks  still  have  tempers;  that 
coachmen  sometimes  drink;  that  maids 
have  "followers;"  that  nursery  girls  gossip 
in  the  parks  with  policemen ;  that  new  em- 
ployees engaged  fail  to  keep  the  engage- 
ment; that  valuable  china  is  broken,  and 
that  household  supplies  are  wasted. 

But  if  the  work  of  these  years  has  not 
borne  immediate  fruit,  it  has  not  been 
without  results  that  will  sometime  come 
to  fruition.  These  results  are  seen  in  the 
distinct,  positive,  and  direct  improvement 
in  the  literature  of  the  subject;  flippancy 
is  giving  place  to  seriousness  in  consider- 
ing the  relations  of  mistress  and  maid; 
historical  and  statistical  investigations  of 
the  question  have  multiplied  and  become 
more  thorough  and  elaborate ;  substantial 
facts  are  supplanting  sentimentality  and 
visionary  theories  in  the  discussions  on  the 
subject;  a  diagnosis  of  the  case  is  being 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC  SERVICE  9 

made,  and  the  prescription  of  a  remedy 
is  withheld  while  the  examination  is  pro- 
gressing; humble-mindedness  and  willing- 
ness to  learn  are  now  found  where  for- 
merly there  were  absolute  certainty  and 
positiveness  of  conviction  in  dealing  with 
the  question ;  in  a  definite  way  an  improve- 
ment in  legislation  has  been  made,  disre- 
putable methods  of  employment  agencies 
have  been  exposed,  social  oases  have  been 
planted  in  desert  places,  and,  in  general, 
a  concrete  method  of  procedure  has  been 
substituted  for  polite  abstractions  and  in- 
nocuous generalities.  All  this  means  that 
a  long  step  forward  has  been  taken  within 
the  past  decade. 

The  great  improvement  in  the  character 
of  the  general  literature  of  the  subject  is 
seen  in  the  gradual  disappearance  of  the 
fault-finding,  the  sentimental,  the  goody- 
goody  magazine  article,  and  the  appearance 
in  its  place  of  genuine  contributions  to  the 
subject,  like  those  recently  made  to  the 
"Atlantic  Monthly  "  by  Miss  Jane  Seymour 


10        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

Klink  and  Miss  Frances  A.  Kellor.  Miss 
Jane  Addams  in  "A  Belated  Industry"1 
has  dealt  most  thoroughly  with  the  eco- 
nomic phases  of  the  subject,  as  has  Mrs. 
Mary  Roberts  Smith  in  her  admirable 
article  on  "Domestic  Service;  the  Respon- 
sibility of  Employers."2  Mr.  Bolton  Hall 
has  set  forth  most  vigorously  the  employee's 
side  of  the  case  in  "The  Servant  Class  on 
the  Farm  and  in  the  Slums;" 3  while  a  sym- 
posium on  the  subject  by  a  group  of  men 
has  recently  discussed  in  an  impartial  man- 
ner many  of  the  difficulties  of  the  situation. 
Pure  literature  also  makes  its  contribu- 
tion, and  Mrs.  Mary  Hartwell  Catherwood 
has  recently  given  a  charming  picture  of  "A 
Convent  Man-Servant."  4  Nothing  could 
prove  more  effectively  the  change  in  the 
attitude  of  the  public  mind  toward  the  sub- 

1  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  i,  556-559,  March,  1896. 
Cf.  the  chapter  entitled    "Household  Adjustment,"  in  Miss 
Addams's  Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,  1902. 

2  The  Forum,  August,  1899. 

8  The  Arena,  September,  1898. 

4  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  January,  1897. 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC   SERVICE         11 

ject  than  does  the  contrast  presented  be- 
tween such  a  sketch,  drawn  with  light  and 
sympathetic  pen,  and  that  given  in  the  satires 
of  Dean  Swift  and  of  Defoe.  The  very 
absence  of  the  figure  of  a  domestic  servant 
in  the  modern  novel,  and  in  current  popular 
literature  in  every  form,  is  in  itself  an  indi- 
cation of  a  changed  attitude  of  the  pub- 
lic mind  toward  the  question  as  a  whole. 
Figaro,  and  even  Sam  Weller,  are  almost 
as  far  removed  from  us  as  are  the  servants 
of  Potiphar  and  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba. 

The  attitude  of  the  daily  press  toward 
the  subject  of  domestic  service  certainly 
leaves  something  yet  to  be  desired,  —  the 
stock  jests  on  the  impertinent  maid  and  the 
ignorant  mistress,  like  those  on  the  mother- 
in-law  and  the  summer  girl,  die  hard,  but 
they  will  go  in  time. 

The  historical  investigations  of  the  sub- 
ject have  been  few  in  number,  but  they  have 
been  of  great  value.  Mr.  Albert  Matthews 
has  placed  all  students  of  the  subject  under 
obligation  to  him  by  his  exhaustive  study, 


12        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

"  The  Terms  Hired  Man  and  Help," 1  as 
Mr.  James  D.  Butler  had  previously  done 
by  his  investigations  on  "British  Convicts 
shipped  to  American  Colonies,"2  and  Dr. 
Karl  Frederick  Geiser  by  his  work  on 
"  Redemptioners  and  Indented  Servants  in 
the  Colony  and  Commonwealth  of  Penn- 
sylvania." 3 

The  public  library  is  always  first  to 
create  as  well  as  to  satisfy  a  demand  for 
literature  on  subjects  of  general  interest. 
It  is  therefore  not  surprising  to  find  that 
the  Providence  Public  Library  as  far  back 
as  1893  issued  a  bibliography  of  all  works 
and  magazine  articles  on  domestic  service, 
which  has  been  followed  by  the  still  more 
exhaustive  reference-list  published  in  1898 
on  the  general  subject  of  domestic  science; 
and  that  the  Salem  Public  Library  has  a 
similar  list.  The  New  York  State  Library 
has  published  a  comprehensive  biblio- 


1  Publications  of  the  Colonial  Society  of  Massachusetts,  vol.  v. 

2  American  Historical  Review,  n,  12,  October,  1896. 

3  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  1901. 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC   SERVICE          13 

graphy  of  the  whole  subject  of  domestic 
economy,  and  it  sends  out,  to  all  parts  of 
the  state,  traveling  libraries  of  the  best 
volumes  on  the  same  subject,  —  the  list  of 
the  volumes  included  being  in  itself  an 
excellent  guide  to  the  study  of  household 
economics.  But  the  greatest  of  all  steps  in 
advance  has  been  made  by  those  libraries 
that  have  changed  the  classification  of  works 
attempting  to  treat  scientifically  the  sub- 
ject of  domestic  service  from  the  class  of 
Domestic  Economy  to  that  of  Economics 
proper.  The  change  seems  slight,  but  it  is 
a  recognition  of  the  intimate  relation  that 
exists  between  domestic  service  and  other 
forms  of  industry. 

The  statistician,  like  the  librarian,  is  also 
quick  to  create  as  well  as  to  respond  to  the 
demand  for  information  of  a  serious  nature, 
and  this  has  been  shown  in  the  growing 
recognition  of  the  importance  of  domestic 
service  as  a  field  for  statistical  research. 
Among  the  most  thorough  of  these  statis- 
tical investigations  is  that  carried  on  by 


14        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

Miss  Isabel  Eaton,  —  recently  fellow  of 
the  College  Settlements'  Association,  —  in 
regard  to  negro  domestic  service  in  the 
seventh  ward  of  Philadelphia.1  Miss  Eaton 
has  made  an  exhaustive  study  of  one  phase 
of  the  subject  in  a  limited  area,  considering 
not  only  the  number  of  negroes  thus  em- 
ployed, but  the  methods  of  living,  savings, 
and  expenditures,  amusements  and  recrea- 
tions, length  and  quality  of  the  service, 
conjugal  condition,  illiteracy,  and  health. 
The  work  has  been  done  in  a  thoroughly 
scientific  manner,  and  the  results  form  an 
admirable  presentation  of  negro  service  in 
a  single  ward  of  one  city. 

Similar  thorough  investigations  of  special 
aspects  of  the  question  have  been  carried  on 
by  Miss  Mary  W.  Dewson  and  Miss  Edith 
G.  Fabens  for  the  Women's  Educational 
and  Industrial  Union  of  Boston,  and  by 
Miss  Gertrude  Bigelow,  fellow  of  the  Asso- 

1  Isabel  Eaton,  "A  Special  Report  on  Domestic  Service,"  in 
The  Philadelphia  Negro,  by  W.  E.  B.  Du  Bois.  Publications 
of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  Philadelphia,  1899. 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC  SERVICE          15 

ciation  of  Collegiate  Alumnae,  at  the  School 
of  Housekeeping.  They  have  collected 
statistics  in  regard  to  the  hours  of  labor  in 
domestic  service,  the  social  conditions  of 
domestic  service,  household  expenses,  and 
the  relative  cost  of  home-cooked  and  of 
purchased  food.  The  results  of  these  inves- 
tigations have  been  collected  by  the  Massa- 
chusetts Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor,  and 
the  reports  based  on  them  have  been  com- 
mented on  by  the  press.  Scientific  informa- 
tion in  regard  to  the  subject  has  thus  been 
widely  circulated,  and  this  must  have  been 
effective  in  changing  somewhat  the  attitude 
of  the  public  mind  toward  the  subject  as 
a  whole.  Mention  must  also  be  made  of  the 
"Twentieth  Century  Expense  Book,"  pre- 
pared by  Miss  Mary  W.  Dewson;  its  wide- 
spread use  would  be  of  service  in  affording 
opportunity  for  a  comparative  study  of 
household  expenses. 

It  was  early  recognized  that  some  of 
the  most  difficult  factors  of  the  problem 
concerned  the  intelligence  office,  and  inves- 


16        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

tigations  on  a  somewhat  limited  scale  were 
carried  on  in  several  cities;  but,  largely 
owing  to  political  considerations,  it  was 
not  deemed  advisable  to  publish  the  results. 
The  most  thorough  and  systematic  inves- 
tigation undertaken  in  this  direction  has 
been  that  of  Miss  Frances  A.  Kellor,  whose 
"Out  of  Work,"  based  on  a  study  of  more 
than  seven  hundred  agencies,  has  laid  bare 
the  evils  of  the  present  system  of  securing 
new  employees,  as  seen  by  employer,  em- 
ployee, and  manager  of  the  agency.  A  body 
of  facts  has  thus  been  made  available  that 
must  prove  of  the  highest  service  in  any 
attempt  to  cope  with  the  notorious  evils 
attending  many  agencies. 

The  state  bureaus  of  labor  have  in  sev- 
eral instances  done  valiant  service  to  the 
cause  through  the  official  investigations 
carried  on.  As  far  back  as  1872  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor 
devoted  four  and  a  half  pages  of  its  annual 
report  to  domestic  labor.  But  the  first 
real  investigation  of  the  subject  made  by 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC  SERVICE          17 

'  a  state  bureau  of  labor  was  probably  that 
undertaken  by  the  Minnesota  Bureau  in 
1890.  This  has  been  followed  by  special 
investigations  in  other  states,  —  notably 
Kansas  and  Michigan,  —  and  in  Canada. 
Moreover,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
many  bureaus,  while  making  no  special  in- 
vestigation of  domestic  service,  have  inci- 
dentally considered  the  subject  in  connection 
with  their  investigations  of  general  labor 
questions.  Most  of  all  is  encouragement 
to  be  found  in  the  comprehensive  inves- 
tigation recently  carried  on  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Industrial  Commission. 

These  investigations  enumerated  have 
been  of  a  severely  scientific,  statistical  na- 
ture, and  have  been  carried  on  by  state  or 
national  organizations.  But  other  studies 
no  less  important  have  been  made  by  or- 
ganizations of  a  purely  private  or  of  a  semi- 
public  character.  Notable  among  these 
has  been  the  Association  of  Collegiate 
Alumnae,  several  branches  of  which  have 
been  most  active  in  making  studies  of 


18        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

domestic  service,  both  as  a  special  field  for 
investigation  and  also  in  connection  with 
the  larger  subjects  of  home  economics  and 
domestic  science.  Students  in  colleges  and 
universities  have  made  special  studies  in 
the  same  field,  and  in  some  instances  have 
made  distinct  contributions  to  the  subject. 
This  work  has  been  of  most  value,  however, 
in  the  indication  it  has  given  of  a  desire  on 
the  part  of  college-trained  investigators  to 
make  domestic  service  a  subject  of  serious 
consideration. 

Domestic  service  has  been  until  very 
recently  a  field  untouched  by  the  statistician 
and  investigator.  The  studies  already 
made  show  not  so  much  what  has  been 
done  as  how  much  yet  remains  to  be  done. 
But  the  territory  is  already  being  occupied. 
Trained  investigators  are  mapping  out  the 
field,  workers  are  at  hand,  and  in  a  few 
years  we  shall  have  a  body  of  facts  that 
will  afford  a  sufficient  basis  for  scientific 
deductions  in  regard  to  the  condition  of 
domestic  service  in  the  entire  country. 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC   SERVICE          19 

Opinions  may  honestly  differ  as  to 
whether  it  is  advisable  to  substitute  in 
schools  and  colleges  subjects  along  the  line 
of  household  affairs  for  other  subjects 
more  properly  classed  as  liberal  studies. 
But  it  is  interesting  to  note  how  much  has 
been  done  in  this  direction.  Courses  in 
household  economics  have  been  given  in 
recent  years  in  the  state  universities  of 
Illinois,  Nebraska,  Ohio,  and  Wisconsin, 
as  well  as  in  the  Leland  Stanford  Junior 
University,  while  Columbia  University 
through  Teachers  College  has  offered  simi- 
lar work. 

In  many  agricultural  colleges,  and  in 
seminaries  and  academies  like  those  in 
Auburndale,  Massachusetts,  and  Paines- 
ville,  Ohio,  there  are  such  courses  in  the 
curricula.  On  the  other  hand,  there  can 
be  no  question  whatever  as  to  the  propriety 
and  necessity  of  introducing,  as  has  already 
been  done,  courses  in  domestic  science 
into  the  great  technical  schools,  such  as 
Pratt,  Drexel,  and  Armour  institutes. 


20         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

The  School  of  Housekeeping  established 
in  Boston  in  1897  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Women's  Educational  and  Industrial 
Union  went  still  further,  in  that  it  was  not 
so  much  a  technical  school  as  a  more 
truly  genuine  professional  school  for  the 
training  of  experts  in  the  great  profession 
of  housekeeping.  The  honorable  record  it 
made  while  an  independent  institution  gives 
reason  to  believe  that,  now  that  it  has  been 
merged  in  Simmons  College,  it  will  go  on 
to  still  greater  achievements  under  the  new 
conditions.  The  establishment  of  similar 
schools  elsewhere  has  been  much  discussed, 
while  in  some  places  there  have  been  spo- 
radic efforts  to  establish  classes  in  house- 
hold training.  Indeed,  it  must  be  said  that 
in  certain  classes  of  fashionable  schools  it 
is  at  this  moment  the  latest  fad  to  have 
instruction  in  all  household  matters,  quite 
as  much  as  in  art  and  music. 

Study  and  investigations  have  led  to 
organization,  and  the  first  association  in 
the  field  was  the  National  Household 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC  SERVICE         21 

Economic  Association,  formed  in  1893, 
with  branches  in  many  states,  some  of 
which  did  admirable  work. 

The  Lake  Placid  Conference  that  met 
first  in  1899  is  not  strictly  an  organization, 
but  an  informal  gathering  of  workers  who 
have  discussed  the  subject  particularly  on 
its  scientific  side,  since  the  attendance  has 
been  largely  made  up  of  those  interested 
in  the  educational  and  scientific  side  of 
household  economics.  Its  proceedings 
give  an  admirable  summary  of  the  latest 
scientific  discussions  of  the  subject. 

The  most  recent  as  well  as  the  most 
important  of  all  such  organizations  has  been 
that  of  the  Inter-Municipal  Research  Com- 
mittee formed  "for  the  purpose  of  studying 
existing  phases  of  household  work,  to  aid  in 
securing  fair  conditions  for  employer  and 
employee,  and  to  place  their  relations  on 
a  sound  business  basis."  Much  has  already 
been  accomplished  by  it,  especially  in  the 
direction  of  investigating  employment  agen- 
cies, establishing  a  bureau  of  information, 


22        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

and  studying  the  conditions  under  which 
colored  girls  from  the  South  are  brought  to 
the  North  to  enter  domestic  service.  Its 
programme  for  the  future  lays  out  a  con- 
stantly enlarging  sphere  of  activities. 

All  these  investigations  and  educational 
measures  have  been  undertaken  in  the 
belief  that  household  employment  has  its 
economic  side,  like  other  forms  of  industry. 
The  widespread  recognition  of  this  fact  has 
been  a  most  significant  advance,  since 
earlier  discussions  of  the  subject  had  con- 
sidered only  the  ethical  factors  involved. 
But  an  interesting  reversion  to  the  more 
purely  ethical  consideration  of  the  question 
has  been  seen  in  the  various  efforts  to  fol- 
low the  injunction  of  Charles  Reade:  "Put 
yourself  in  his  place."  A  number  of  young 
women  have  entered  domestic  service  in 
disguise,  and  from  personal  experience 
have  narrated  the  life  of  a  domestic  em- 
ployee. It  may  well  be  questioned  whether 
the  actual  results  reached  are  commensu- 
rate with  the  effort  expended; —  the  experi- 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC  SERVICE          23 

ment  has  meant  months  of  unnatural  life 
and  strained  relationships,  and  in  the  end 
we  probably  know  little  more  in  regard  to 
the  condition  of  domestic  employees  than 
could  be  known  by  turning  the  inner  light 
of  our  own  consciousness  on  our  own  house- 
holds and  those  of  our  acquaintances.  But 
the  experiment  has  been  interesting  as 
indicative  of  a  determined  effort  to  look  at 
the  subject  from  every  point  of  view. 

It  is  not  surprising,  in  view  of  all  the 
agitation  of  the  question  in  our  own  country, 
to  find  that  a  similar  interest  has  been 
aroused  elsewhere.  In  Germany,  that 
home  of  conservatism  in  all  domestic  affairs? 
an  elaborate  statistical  investigation  has 
been  carried  on  by  Dr.  Oscar  Stillich,  and 
its  results  published  in  an  exhaustive  work 
entitled  "  The  Status  of  Women  Domestics 
in  Berlin." l  Nor  again  is  it  surprising  to 
find  that  neither  official  nor  domestic  Berlin 
has  taken  kindly  to  the  investigation,  since 

1  Die  Lage  der  weiblichen  Dienstboten  in  Berlin,  von  Dr. 
Oscar  Stillich.  Berlin.  1902. 


24        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

bureaucracy  has  in  it  no  place  for  private 
initiative,  and  the  Kinder,  Kuchen,  Kirchen 
theory  of  domestic  life  has  resented  what 
has  been  deemed  unwarranted  interference 
in  private  affairs.  But  it  is  a  matter  of 
congratulation  that  the  author  has  been 
of  undaunted  courage,  and  that  his  work 
stands  as  a  thoroughly  scientific  investiga- 
tion, and  therefore  the  most  valuable  con- 
tribution yet  made  in  any  country  to  the 
theory  and  condition  of  domestic  service. 

Two  things  of  special  encouragement 
must  be  noted.  One  is  the  changing  atti- 
tude of  domestic  employees  themselves 
toward  their  own  occupation,  and  the  other 
is  the  introduction  of  men  into  a  field  where 
it  has  always  been  held  that  by  divine 
ordinance  women  ruled  supreme. 

The  number  of  domestics  who  have 
shown  any  interest  in  the  question  is  indeed, 
as  yet,  infinitesimal  in  comparison  with  the 
total  number  in  the  occupation,  but  five 
righteous  men  shall  save  the  city.  Here 
and  there  one  is  found  who  realizes  that 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC   SERVICE         25 

domestic  employees  must  be  ready  to  help 
themselves  if  help  is  to  come  from  others, 
that  it  is  possible  for  them  to  improve  the 
conditions  of  domestic  service  through 
their  own  efforts,  that  respect  for  any 
occupation  comes,  as  those  connected  with 
it  command  respect  for  it,  through  their 
own  attitude  toward  it.  This  is  as  yet 
realized  by  so  few  that  no  appreciable 
results  can  be  seen  with  the  naked  eye,  but 
the  leaven  is  working. 

A  very  welcome  and  appreciable  change 
has  come  through  the  practical  interest  in 
the  question  shown  by  men.  They  have 
lectured  and  written  on  the  subject,  and 
have  listened  to  the  lectures  on  it  given  by 
women.  This  means  that  the  subject  is 
being  recognized  by  them  as  worthy  of 
study  and  discussion  and  as  of  importance 
to  all  —  to  men  and  to  women  alike  —  who 
are  interested  in  the  welfare  of  society.  On 
its  practical  side  also  the  interest  of  men  is 
making  itself  felt.  Chafing-dish  courses 
have  been  opened  for  men,  where  they  have 


26        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

learned  the  preparation  of  the  luxuries  of 
the  table,  as  the  rough-and-ready  experi- 
ences of  camp-life  in  summer  vacations  and 
in  military  campaigns  have  taught  them 
how  to  prepare  the  necessities  of  life. 
Young  men  in  college  and  young  men 
living  in  bachelors'  apartments  are  proud  of 
their  attainments  in  afternoon  teas  and 
chafing-dish  suppers,  while  men  trained  as 
nurses  learn  the  preparation  of  delicacies 
for  the  sick.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  cooking- 
classes  are  but  indirectly  connected  with 
domestic  service,  but  everything  that  breaks 
down  artificial  barriers,  and  permits  the 
free  industrial  entrance  of  both  men  and 
women  into  whatever  occupation  they  pre- 
fer, is  a  direct  gain  to  every  line  of  work. 
Any  one  whose  attention  has  been  turned  in 
the  direction  of  securing  household  em- 
ployees must  constantly  come  in  contact 
with  the  fact  that  there  is  a  considerable 
number  of  men  engaged  in  household 
employments  for  remuneration. 

Does  this  enumeration  of  the  progress  of 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC  SERVICE         27 

the  past  ten  years  seem  indeed  like  an  Ho- 
meric catalogue  of  the  ships  ?  It  may,  yet 
the  ships  are  bound  for  a  definite  haven, 
and  must  in  time  enter  port. 

If  one  lasting  gain  of  these  years  has 
come  to  be  an  appreciation  of  the  necessity 
of  diagnosing  the  disease  before  prescribing 
a  remedy,  it  must  follow  that  the  remedy 
prescribed  fits  the  disease.  Has  it  been 
shown  as  a  result  of  exhaustive  and  exhaust- 
ing investigation  that  the  great  barrier  to 
the  entrance  of  competent  men  and  women 
into  domestic  employment  is  the  social  one, 
-  it  follows  that  efforts  are  being  turned 
toward  leveling  this  barrier.  If  we  have 
learned  that  the  loneliness  of  the  life  is  in 
sharp  contrast  to  the  opportunity  for  com- 
radeship presented  in  other  industrial  pur- 
suits, we  have  thereby  learned  to  ward 
against  this  loneliness  by  encouraging 
means  of  wholesome  recreation.  When 
scientific  research  has  disclosed  the  plague 
spots  in  the  employment  agency  and  the 
intelligence  office,  restrictive  legislation  has 


28        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

followed.  If  it  has  been  found  that  the 
weak  and  the  ignorant  have  been  taken 
advantage  of  by  the  strong  and  the  know- 
ing, efforts  for  moral  regeneration  have 
been  put  forth.  Since  we  have  realized 
that  in  the  household,  as  elsewhere,  it  is 
impossible  for  the  blind  to  lead  the  blind, 
technical  schools  have  offered  instruction  in 
household  affairs  to  employers  of  house- 
hold employees. 

Yet  when  we  look  over  the  field  still  to  be 
reclaimed  in  the  interests  of  comfortable 
home  life,  more  than  enough  causes  for 
discouragement  remain.  Housekeepers 
still  carry  on  their  households  in  defiance 
of  all  business  methods;  ignorant  women 
boast  that  they  "  have  never  so  much  as 
boiled  an  egg  in  their  life,"  and  complain 
that  their  cooks  will  not  stay  with  them; 
idle  women  spend  their  time  in  playing 
bridge,  and  wonder  why  their  maids  are 
discontented;  men  boast  at  their  tables  of 
their  shrewdness  in  obtaining  something 
for  nothing,  and  cannot  understand  why 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC   SERVICE         29 

petty  thieving  goes  on  in  their  households; 
society  receives  the  once,  twice,  and  thrice 
divorced,  but  draws  the  social  line  at  the 
cook  and  the  butler;  communities  tolerate 
by  the  score  the  places  where  domestic 
employees,  as  others,  can  find  recreation 
and  amusement  of  every  questionable 
kind,  but  the  communities  can  yet  be 
counted  on  one  hand  where  they  can  obtain 
genuine,  wholesome,  attractive  recreation; 
the  church,  with  a  few  exceptions,  is  prone 
to  close  its  doors,  except  for  Sunday  and 
midweek  evening  service,  and  to  expend 
its  efforts  on  fine  music,  with  church  sup- 
pers to  foot  the  bills,  —  forgetting  the 
poverty  of  interests  in  the  lives  of  so  many 
in  the  community. 

But  when  all  has  been  said,  it  must  be 
felt  that  the  balance  shows  much  to  the 
credit  of  domestic  service,  —  a  balance 
due  to  the  capital  invested  in  it  through 
the  study  of  conditions  made  by  both  men 
and  women.  In  no  country  are  these  con- 
ditions so  favorable  as  they  are  in  America 


30        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

to-day.  England  has  its  well-trained,  ob- 
sequious butler,  Germany  has  its  police 
regulations  of  servants,  France  has  its 
chef,  Italy  has  hopeless  machines  who  are 
"really  servants."  America  has  none  of 
these,  but  it  has  men  and  women  who 
believe  that  if  the  future  holds  for  us  a 
solution  of  the  problem  it  lies,  not  in  the 
direction  of  reproducing  on  American  soil 
the  English  flunkey,  or  in  the  introduction 
of  German  governmental  control,  or  in 
increasing  the  number  of  French  chefs 
who  shall  give  us  endless  varieties  of  new 
soups  and  salads,  or  yet  in  crushing  all 
interest  in  life  out  of  the  hearts  and  souls 
of  those  who  serve  us,  as  a  pitiless  fate 
seems  to  have  done  in  Italy;  but  men  and 
women  who  believe  that  the  solution  lies 
in  the  path  of  hard,  toilsome  investigation, 
to  which  students  must  come  without 
prejudice  and  with  a  fearless  acceptance 
of  the  results  of  such  investigations. 

In    no    country   are   the    conditions    of 
domestic  service  so  hopeful  as  they  are 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC   SERVICE         31 

to-day  in  America,  and  it  is  in  large  part 
due  to  our  theory  of  education  which  has 
been  in  practical  force  for  more  than  a  gen- 
eration. Men  and  women  receive  the 
same  school,  college,  and  university  train- 
ing, and  this  training  enables  women  to 
order  their  households,  on  their  mechanical 
side,  in  the  same  systematic  way  that  the 
business  enterprises  of  men  are  managed. 
The  result  of  this  is  that  matters  pertaining 
to  the  household  command  the  respect  as 
well  as  the  sentimental  consideration  of 
men,  and  that  men  and  women  are  more 
and  more  becoming  co-workers  in  all  efforts 
to  secure  improvement.  Each  year  the 
proportion  of  housekeepers  with  trained 
minds  increases,  and  in  the  same  propor- 
tion the  number  increases  of  housekeepers 
who  make  intelligent  demands  on  their 
employees,  who  do  not  encourage  poor 
service  by  tolerating  it,  who  realize  their 
responsibility  to  other  households,  and 
understand  that  "every  irresponsible  mis- 
tress makes  life  more  difficult  for  every 


32         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

other  mistress  and  maid."  It  is  at  least 
significant  that  this  progress  has  been  made 
in  a  country  where  the  education  of  men 
and  women  is  precisely  the  same,  and  that 
the  least  advance  has  been  made  in  those 
which  arrange  a  special  curriculum  for 
women  and  which  profess  to  train  girls  and 
young  women  specially  for  domestic  life. 
America  holds  that  education  means  for 
women,  as  well  as  for  men,  intellectual 
training  rather  than  the  accumulation  of 
information  without  it,  and  that  the  value 
of  this  is  seen,  in  the  case  of  women,  in 
the  intelligent  study  they  are  everywhere 
making  of  household  affairs. 

When  the  vital  question  in  Italy  was 
that  of  independence  from  Austria  and  of 
unity  under  an  Italian  government,  Maz- 
zini  said,  with  a  sublime  appreciation  of 
the  principle  involved,  "Without  a  country 
and  without  liberty,  we  might  perhaps 
produce  some  prophets  of  art,  but  no  vital 
art.  Therefore  it  was  best  for  us  to  con- 
secrate our  lives  to  the  solution  of  the 


STUDY  OF  DOMESTIC  SERVICE          33 

problem,  'Are  we  to  have  a  country  ?"  It 
is  possible  to  have  peace  and  contentment 
in  individual  households  along  with  igno- 
rance of  the  economic  laws  that  govern  the 
household,  but  there  can  be  no  radical 
reform  in  domestic  service  in  this  or  any 
other  country  that  does  not  recognize  the 
inseparable  connection  between  domestic 
service  and  all  other  forms  of  labor,  and 
that  does  not  make  this  fact  its  starting- 
point.  If  the  difficulties  in  the  present 
situation,  which  are  all  too  evident,  are 
to  be  overcome,  it  can  only  be  by  devoting 
our  energies,  as  did  Mazzini  in  Italy,  not 
so  much  to  temporizing  in  our  households 
as  rather  to  the  slow  methods  of  careful, 
patient  investigation  of  the  conditions  with- 
out. The  immediate  gain  to  ourselves  may 
be  slight,  but  those  who  come  after  us  may 
reap  the  benefits. 


EDUCATION  IN   THE  HOUSEHOLD 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

IT  is  reported  that  a  distinguished  for- 
eigner was  once  visiting  a  well-known 
woman's  college,  and  after  listening  to  the 
explanation  of  the  work  carried  on  there, 
inquired  of  its  president,  "Pardon  me,  but 
how  does  this  affect  the  chances  of  the 
young  ladies?"  Some  years  since  several 
persons  were  speaking  of  the  recent  mar- 
riage of  a  college  woman  and  the  remark 
was  made,  "What  a  pity  to  have  so  fine  an 
education  wasted  in  keeping  house!"  Not 
long  ago  a  college  woman  was  discussing 
the  education  of  women  with  a  young 
German  Ph.D.,  and  found  that  her  argu- 
ments in  its  favor  were  met  by  her  opponent 
with  the  triumphant  question,  "But  can 
these  young  women  cook?" 

These  three  incidents,  which  could  be 
multiplied  in  kind  indefinitely,  are  illus- 
trations of  the  somewhat  contradictory  but 
current  opinions  regarding  the  mutual  re- 


38        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

lations  of  education  and  household  affairs. 
It  is  apparently  the  common  belief,  first, 
that  educated  women  never  marry;  second, 
that  if  they  do  marry,  their  education  is 
wasted;  third,  that  if  such  women  marry 
and  do  not  consider  their  education  wasted 
in  the  household,  the  education  received 
has  at  all  events  given  evidence  of  nothing 
either  useful  or  practical. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  mental  agility 
involved  in  reaching  these  somewhat  di- 
verse conclusions  finds  its  parallel  in  the 
remedy  usually  proposed  for  alleviating  so 
distressing  a  condition.  If  college  women 
never  marry,  but  find  when  they  do  marry 
that  their  education  is  wasted  because  they 
have  not  learned  in  college  how  to  bake 
bread,  then,  it  is  argued,  let  us  have  com- 
pulsory teaching  of  domestic  science  in  the 
public  schools  and  send  our  daughters  to 
private  schools. 

The  beneficial  results  of  the  introduction 
of  domestic  science  into  the  public  schools 
would  undoubtedly  be  very  great,  did  any 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD       39 

one  understand  very  clearly  what  is  included 
under  the  head  of  domestic  science,  were 
any  one  at  present  prepared  to  teach  it, 
and  were  it  quite  evident  who  should  study 
it.  At  present  these  difficulties  would  seem 
to  militate  against  the  widespread  intro- 
duction of  this  subject  into  our  educational 
system. 

If  it  is  asked  what  is  meant  by  domestic 
science,  there  is  a  temptation  to  make  the 
irrelevant  reply  that  historians,  economists, 
political  scientists,  and  sociologists  are  still 
attempting  to  delimit  their  respective  fields, 
each  claiming  that  its  territory  includes  that 
preempted  by  the  other  three.  It  is  as 
difficult  to  define  the  domain  of  domestic 
science  as  it  is  that  of  sociology.  Does  it 
include  the  architectural  construction  of  a 
house  ?  May  it  perhaps  go  back  of  the  con- 
struction and  include  the  selection  of  a  site  ? 
Does  it  even  involve  the  principles  in  the 
choice  of  a  suitable  residential  city?  Is  it 
possible  that  behind  this  lies  the  question  of 
selecting  that  state  of  the  Union  that  is 


40        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

most  advantageous  ?  If  the  problem  is  to 
be  worked  backwards,  it  must  also  be 
worked  forwards,  and  it  must  be  decided 
whether  the  interior  decoration  of  a  house 
comes  within  the  jurisdiction  of  domestic 
science.  Would  this  comprise  instruction 
in  wood-carving,  pyrography,  china  paint- 
ing, and  basketry  ?  But  it  seems  reasonable 
to  pass  from  the  house  itself  to  the  activities 
carried  on  within  it.  Should  these  activities 
be  separated  into  different  classes,  such  as 
those  pertaining  to  the  care  of  the  house, 
the  preparation  of  food,  the  making  of 
clothing,  the  physical  care  of  children,  the 
instruction  of  household  helpers,  the  enter- 
tainment of  guests,  the  training  of  husbands 
and  wives  ?  If  this  or  any  other  classifica- 
tion is  made,  should  domestic  science  con- 
sider one,  all,  or  any  combination  of  these 
classes  ? 

But  one  of  the  tendencies  of  the  time  is 
toward  intensive  work,  and  the  courses  in 
domestic  science  should  perhaps  reflect  that 
tendency.  If  so,  should  we  not  look  for 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD       41 

courses  to  be  offered  in  napkin  embroidery, 
Hardanger  work,  and  Mexican  drawn 
work,  in  the  preparation  of  wheatena,  toast 
water,  and  flaxseed  tea,  in  the  making  of 
cheese  fondu,  pineapple  canapes,  and  orna- 
mental frosting  ?  Should  not  the  mysteries 
of  thin  sauces,  medium  sauces,  and  thick 
sauces  be  elucidated  ?  If  on  the  other  hand 
the  opposite  tendency  is  observable,  should 
we  not  expect  courses  in  the  formal  and 
informal  entertainment  of  guests  and  the 
philosophy  of  a  menu,  even  that  of  a  bill  of 
fare? 

The  difficulties  of  the  situation  are  com- 
parable only  to  those  of  the  Bellman  who 

"Had  only  one  notion  for  crossing  the  ocean, 

And  that  was  to  tingle  his  bell. 
He  was  thoughtful  and  grave  —  but  the  orders  he  gave 

Were  enough  to  bewilder  a  crew. 
When  he  cried  'Steer  to  starboard,  but  keep  her  head 

larboard ! ' 
What  on  earth  was  the  helmsman  to  do  ?  " 

But  granting  that  some  agreement  could 
be  reached  as  to  the  content  of  the  term 


42        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

domestic  science,  there  would  still  remain 
the  question  as  to  how  instruction  in  it 
could  be  given.  We  have  learned  in  nearly 
every  other  department  of  education  the 
extreme  difficulty  of  teaching  what  we  do 
not  know,  but  we  still  cling  to  the  supersti- 
tion that  it  is  possible  to  teach  domestic 
science  in  private  and  public  schools  when 
the  university  has  not  as  yet  made  the 
household  the  subject  of  scientific  or  eco- 
nomic investigation.  The  one  or  two 
notable  exceptions  to  this  statement  do  not 
invalidate  its  general  truth. 

The  reasons  are  manifold  why  the 
university  does  not  as  yet  investigate  the 
household,  although  every  other  field  of 
human  knowledge  and  activity  has  appar- 
ently been  taken  into  its  libraries,  its 
laboratories,  and  its  workshops;  but  un- 
doubtedly one  of  the  weightiest  is  the 
survival  of  the  tradition  that  affairs  of 
the  household  concern  only  women,  that 
women  work  always  through  instinct  and 
intuition,  and  therefore  that  the  household 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD       43 

is  not  a  suitable  field  for  scientific  investiga- 
tion. But  with  the  breaking  down  of  the 
artificial  barriers  between  the  interests  of 
men  and  of  women,  it  is  found  that  the 
affairs  of  the  household  do  concern  every 
member  of  it.  Modern  investigations  in 
psychology  are  showing  that  the  mental 
processes  of  women  are  precisely  the  same 
as  those  of  men.  It  therefore  remains  for 
the  university  to  recognize  that  the  house- 
hold is  worthy  of  investigation.  That  there 
is  scope  for  such  an  inquiry  would  seem 
evident  from  the  curriculum  of  an  excellent 
school  of  domestic  science,  selected  from 
among  hundreds  of  other  illustrations  that 
might  be  given.  Course  I  in  Domestic 
Science  places  in  conjunction  lectures  on 
food  adulteration,  bacteriology,  furniture, 
decorations,  textiles,  and  housekeeping  in 
other  lands  —  an  enumeration  not  saved 
even  by  alphabetical  arrangement. 

But  not  only  is  there  difficulty  in  deciding 
what  should  be  included  under  the  head  of 
domestic  science  and  how  instruction  in  it 


44         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

should  be  given,  but  a  third  difficulty  lies 
in  deciding  who  should  be  instructed  in  the 
subject.  If  it  is  said  that  all  young  wo- 
men should  receive  such  instruction,  we 
are  confronted  by  the  fact  that  the  young 
woman  trained  for  domesticity  takes  up 
stenography  and  occupies  a  hall  bedroom, 
or  becomes  a  commercial  traveler  and 
spends  her  life  in  hotels  and  on  railway 
trains;  the  girl  taught  sewing  and  cooking 
in  the  public  school  goes  into  the  shop  or 
the  factory;  the  young  woman  who  frankly 
acknowledges  her  engagement  spends  the 
time  prior  to  her  marriage  in  preparing  her 
trousseau  and  in  embroidering  her  initials 
on  her  household  linen.  The  young  woman 
who  has  prepared  herself  for  the  profession 
of  law  or  of  medicine  decides  to  marry  and 
goes  into  business  partnership  with  her 
husband.  It  would  seem  as  if  all  plans  for 
teaching  household  economics  in  the  college 
or  in  the  public  school  with  reference  to 
preparing  young  women  for  their  future 
careers  as  housekeepers  must  be  futile  until 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD       45 

the  orbit  of  the  matrimonial  comet  can  be 
predicted. 

Yet  it  must  be  recognized  that  college 
education  has  already  done  much  for  the 
household,  and  presumably  for  that  some- 
what vague  field  denominated  "domestic 


science." 


The  housekeeper  finds  herself  in  the 
same  position  as  does  the  lawyer,  the  phy- 
sician, and  the  clergyman.  All  are  edu- 
cated side  by  side  throughout  a  college 
course.  In  a  subsequent  professional 
career,  the  lawyer  forgets  his  Greek,  the 
physician  his  history,  and  the  clergyman 
his  mathematics;  but  there  remains  with 
each  one  a  precipitate  of  far  more  value 
than  the  original  compound.  The  lawyer 
is  no  longer  able  to  conjugate  a  verb  in  ju, 
but  his  Greek  has  given  him  an  accuracy 
and  precision  of  thought  that,  other  things 
being  equal,  has  placed  him  professionally 
far  in  advance  of  his  untrained  associates. 
The  physician  has  forgotten  the  various 
steps  in  the  development  of  cabinet  govern- 


46         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

ment  in  England,  but  his  history  has  left 
him  a  ready  sympathy  in  dealing  with  men 
and  a  vision  into  their  future  that  will  long 
outlive  his  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  history. 
The  clergyman  can  no  longer  demonstrate 
Sturm's  theorem  or  Homer's  method,  but 
his  mathematics  has  given  him  a  clearness 
of  reasoning  that  renders  him  an  invincible 
opponent  in  all  battles  for  the  right.  In  all 
these  cases  the  residuum  of  facts  remaining 
from  a  college  education  is  compara- 
tively small.  Knowledge  that  is  not  con- 
stantly used  passes  out  of  mind,  yet,  like 
the  food  assimilated  by  the  physical  body, 
it  serves  its  purpose  in  the  mental  strength 
and  energy  gained  through  it.  Indeed,  it 
may  be  said  that  information  becomes  more 
and  more  the  dross,  and  education  the  pure 
metal  remaining  from  a  general  school  or 
college  training. 

The  embryo  lawyer,  the  physician,  the 
clergyman,  have  throughout  a  college 
course  been  pursuing  parallel  courses  of 
training;  it  has  given  them  little  that  they 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD       47 

can  make  of  immediate  use  in  the  office  or 
the  study,  but  it  has  laid  the  foundation  for 
that  special  research  necessary  in  every 
profession.  The  professional  school  builds 
on  the  training  of  the  college,  and  it  not 
only  gives  the  information  necessary  in  a 
professional  career,  but  it  opens  the  door 
to  the  vast  field  of  investigation  which  it 
is  one  of  the  aims  of  every  professional 
man  to  explore. 

Thus  the  housekeeper,  forgetting  her 
Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics,  her  French, 
German,  and  history,  her  biology,  astro- 
nomy and  economics,  retains  as  the  most 
valuable  heritage  of  her  education  a  train- 
ing in  habits  of  accuracy,  observation,  good 
judgment,  and  self-control  that  enables  her 
to  be  the  master  of  any  unexpected  situa- 
tion that  may  arise.  From  the  beginning 
of  school  life  until  the  close  of  the  college 
course  the  conditions  surrounding  the 
young  man  and  the  young  woman  are 
similar.  Each  has  the  benefit  of  all  the 
information  and  the  general  educational 


48         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

training  the  college  can  give.  To  each 
alike  the  three  great  professions  of  law, 
medicine,  and  theology  open  their  doors 
and  invite  special  study  and  investigation. 
But  if  the  young  woman,  turning  her  back 
on  these  attractive  fields  of  work,  desires  to 
study  the  household  in  a  similar  profes- 
sional way,  she  finds  it  a  terra  incognita. 
She  realizes  that  absolutely  nothing  has 
been  done  in  any  educational  institution 
toward  investigating  its  past  history,  its 
present  conditions,  or  its  future  needs.  It 
is  said  in  another  field  that  every  lawyer 
owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  his  profession 
which  can  be  paid  only  by  some  personal 
contribution  to  the  sum  of  knowledge  in 
his  profession.  One  of  his  aims,  there- 
fore, as  is  that  of  every  professional  man, 
is  to  leave  the  world  richer  in  his  own  field 
through  the  investigation  of  its  unexplored 
parts.  Thus  law,  medicine,  and  theology 
grow  by  virtue  of  the  accumulated  wisdom 
of  those  engaged  in  their  pursuit.  But 
the  housekeeper  finds  that  housekeeping  as 


EDUCATION  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD       49 

a  profession  has  made  no  advances.  It  has 
not  grown  through  the  accumulated  wisdom 
of  past  generations  as  have  the  so-called 
learned  professions.  Whatever  advances 
it  has  made  have  come  from  impetus  given 
it  by  other  occupations  through  their  own 
progress.  Housekeeping  affairs  have  been 
passive  recipients  of  general  progress,  not 
active  participants  in  it. 

If,  then,  domestic  science  is  to  be  made 
a  subject  of  serious  study  and  is  to  be  ac- 
corded a  permanent  place  in  the  school  cur- 
riculum, if  the  household  is  to  profit  by  the 
educational  progress  of  the  day,  it  can  only 
be  after  the  university  has  taken  the  initia- 
tive and  has  made  all  matters  pertaining  to 
the  house  and  home  a  subject  of  scientific 
research. 


THE   RELATION  OF  COLLEGE    WOMEN 
TO   DOMESTIC  SCIENCE 


THE  RELATION  OF  COLLEGE 
WOMEN  TO  DOMESTIC  SCIENCE 

IN  a  Western  city,  somewhat  addicted  to 
the  formation  of  literary  clubs  and  reading- 
circles,  is  a  company  of  women  who  meet 
for  the  study  of  history,  closing  the  after- 
noon's work  with  a  discussion  of  current 
events.  In  alluding  to  these  discussions,  a 
member  once  said,  "  No  matter  what  subject 
is  introduced,  we  always  drift  off  to  the 
woman  question."  The  half -jesting  remark 
has  in  it  more  of  wisdom  than  of  criticism. 
The  so-called  "woman  question"  is  not,  as 
was  once  popularly  supposed,  synonymous 
either  with  woman  suffrage  or  with  the 
higher  education  of  woman  —  it  is  as  broad 
and  as  deep  as  the  thoughts  and  activities  of 
woman.  It  was  inevitable  that  for  many 
years  efforts  should  be  made  to  open  new 
occupations  to  women,  to  give  them  better 
preparation  for  their  work,  and  to  secure 


54        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

fair  remuneration  for  service  well  done.  It 
was  inevitable,  because,  however  much 
some  sociologists  may  wish  it  otherwise,  the 
fact  remains  that  woman  is  and  must  be  to  a 
certain  extent  a  wage-earner.  These  efforts 
have  been  reasonably  successful;  almost 
every  avenue  of  work  is  open  to  women,  and 
almost  every  coveted  opportunity  for  pre- 
paration is  hers.  The  reaction,  however, 
has  come,  and  the  pertinent  question  is 
being  asked,  "Why  has  so  little  been  done 
to  improve  the  work  of  woman  in  those 
fields  which  have  always  without  question 
been  considered  legitimately  hers?" 

A  glance  at  our  periodical  literature  does 
indeed  show  unusual  interest  in  all  ques- 
tions affecting  domestic  life.  Economists 
are  asking  why  the  wages  paid  for  domestic 
service  are  higher  than  those  paid  the  aver- 
age woman  in  other  occupations,  and  why, 
in  spite  of  this,  the  demand  for  household 
workers  is  greater  than  the  supply.  Phil- 
anthropists are  puzzled  to  know  why  girls 
prefer  to  live  in  crowded  tenement -houses 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC  SCIENCE       55 

on  the  merest  pittance  rather  than  enjoy 
many  of  the  comforts  of  home  life  as  a 
household  employee.  Experienced  house- 
keepers find  life  a  burden  when  it  becomes 
necessary  to  change  the  divinity  who  rules 
the  kitchen  or  the  nursery,  and  wonder  why 
it  is  so  difficult  to  secure  efficient  help. 
Educated  women  without  homes  who  desire 
to  learn  the  principles  of  domestic  science 
can  find  no  explanation  for  the  fact  that 
the  United  States  with  its  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  schools  affords  scarcely  one 
where  this  subject  can  be  studied  as  a 
serious  profession  as  is  law,  medicine,  or 
theology.  None  of  these  questions  has  been 
satisfactorily  answered.  The  editor  who 
discourses  of  "half-baked  writers  on  politi- 
cal economy"  settles  one  of  them  by  saying 
that  there  is  no  reason  whatever  why  women 
should  dislike  domestic  service.  But  the 
autocratic  assertion  has  not  visibly  increased 
the  number  of  women  desiring  employ- 
ment as  house-servants.  The  benevolent 
individual  who  has  not  yet  learned  that 


56        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

thousands  of  girls  have  neither  mothers  nor 
homes,  blandly  answers  another  of  these 
questions  by  saying,  "Let  girls  learn 
housekeeping  at  home."  The  world  at 
large  cuts  the  gordian  knot  and  says,  "It  is 
an  unfortunate  condition  of  affairs,  but  we 
cannot  reform  all  evils  at  once." 

Before  considering  the  relation  that  col- 
lege women  sustain  to  the  general  subject  of 
domestic  science,  it  must  be  noted  that  the 
subject  is  one  of  general  interest. 

It  is  of  interest  to  all  women,  because  so 
large  a  proportion  of  them  marry  and 
become  actively  engaged  in  housekeeping; 
the  number  of  married  women  who  do  not 
keep  house  is  possibly  equaled  by  the 
number  of  unmarried  women  who  do. 
Moreover,  the  majority  of  women  whose 
primary  occupation  is  not  housekeeping 
are  at  various  times  called  upon  to  spend 
a  portion  of  their  time  in  household  duties. 
It  is  of  interest  to  all  men,  whether  they 
have  a  full  appreciation  of  it  or  not,  because 
all  questions  affecting  the  house  and  the 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC  SCIENCE       57 

home  are  so  inextricably  bound  up  with  all 
questions  of  life. 

It  must  be  assumed  at  the  outset  that 
there  is  a  necessity  for  improvement  in  the 
conduct  of  household  affairs.  As  the  house- 
hold is  at  present  organized,  the  duties  of 
the  housekeeper  are  multifarious.  The 
ideal  housekeeper  must  have  a  knowledge 
of  culinary  affairs.  Not  only  must  she 
know  how  to  make  food  palatable,  but  she 
must  understand  its  nutritive  and  its  eco- 
nomic value.  She  must  be  able  to  superin- 
tend the  cutting  and  making  of  ordinary 
garments.  She  must  understand  the  over- 
sight of  her  household  employees;  the  de- 
tails of  marketing;  the  principles  of  laundry 
work;  the  keeping  of  household  accounts; 
the  care  of  the  sick.  She  must  know  how  to 
care  for  the  house  and  all  of  its  furniture, 
from  attic  to  cellar.  She  must  be  master  of 
all  these  special  lines  of  work,  and  know  a 
thousand  and  one  things  about  the  house- 
hold not  enumerated.  She  must  not  only 
be  the  housekeeper,  but  the  homekeeper. 


58         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

She  must  furnish  her  house  with  taste,  and 

often  at  the  same  time  with  economy.    She 

should   understand   the   principles   of   the 

^kindergarten,  and  not  shrink  from  apply- 

/  ing  the  fundamental   ideas  of   ethics  and 

psychology   to    the   training   of    children. 

She  must  at  all  times  be  ready  to  perform 

her  social  obligations  in  the  circle  in  which 

she  moves. 

It  is  generally  assumed  that  the  only 
preparation  necessary  to  become  proficient 
in  these  multiform  tasks  is  found  in  the 
instinctive  love  of  domestic  life  common  to 
all  women.  But  this  of  itself  does  not  make 
a  woman  a  successful  housekeeper  anymore 
^  than  a  taste  for  medicine  renders  a  young 
man  a  skillful  surgeon,  or  a  talent  for  law 
constitutes  a  learned  jurist.  There  has  been 
a  growing  recognition  of  this  fact,  but  at  the 
same  time  it  is  said  that  the  home  training 
of  every  girl  ought  to  be  sufficient.  There 
are  many  reasons  why  this  is  not  so.  If  we 
apply  the  principles  to  the  case  of  girls  who 
become  household  employees,  it  is  seen  to 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC   SCIENCE       59 

be  at  fault.  It  is  from  the  ranks  below  the 
so-called  middle  class,  to  use  an  invidious 
phrase,  that  the  great  army  of  household 
employees  is  recruited.  It  is  impossible  for 
a  girl  belonging  to  this  class  to  go  into  a 
family  whose  social  advantages  have  been 
greater  than  her  own,  and  become  at  once 
an  adept  in  the  conventional  forms  of  table 
service,  an  expert  cook,  or  a  good  general 
houseworker.  She  has  had  neither  the 
means,  nor  the  opportunity,  to  gain  even 
a  knowledge  of  what  duties  will  be  required 
of  her,  to  say  nothing  of  knowing  how  to 
perform  them.  An  incompetent  mistress  is 
unable  to  give  the  necessary  instructions ; 
a  competent  one  has  often  neither  the  time 
nor  the  patience  to  undertake  such  training, 
and  indeed  it  ought  not  to  be  expected  of 
her  any  more  than  it  is  supposed  that 
a  banker  who  desires  an  expert  accountant 
will  teach  the  applicant  the  process  of 
addition  and  subtraction. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  assumed  that 
the  home  training  in  domestic  affairs  is 


60        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

sufficient  for  girls  of  the  middle  and  upper 
classes,  there  is  also  danger  of  error.  It 
is  often  quite  as  difficult  to  give  regular 
instruction  in  the  home  in  these  matters  as 
it  is  in  the  ordinary  school  branches.  The 
Law  School  of  the  University  of  Michigan, 
after  thirty  years'  experience,  said  a  few 
years  since  in  regard  to  the  previous  reading 
of  law:  "It  is  not  often  that  the  student 
receives  the  needed  assistance  except  in 
law  schools.  The  active  practitioner,  en- 
grossed with  the  care  of  business,  cannot, 
or  at  least,  as  proved  by  experience,  does 
not,  furnish  the  students  who  place  them- 
selves in  his  charge  the  attention  and  as- 
sistance essential  to  give  a  correct  direc- 
tion to  their  reading,  and  to  teach  them 
to  apply  it  usefully  and  aptly  in  their 
subsequent  professional  life."  This  same 
principle  too  often  applies  in  regard  to 
housework,  even  when  the  teacher  is  the 
mother.  The  most  competent  mothers 
often  have  the  most  incompetent  daugh- 
ters —  it  is  far  more  easy  to  do  the  work 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC   SCIENCE       61 

than  to  teach  another  how  to  do  it.  Some- 
times it  is  assumed  that  the  daughter  can 
learn,  as  the  mother  has  learned,  by  the 
hard  road  of  experience.  It  is,  also,  too 
often  a  question  of  how  the  blind  shall  lead 
the  blind.  Again,  many  girls  are  early  left 
without  homes,  and  thus  deprived  of  the 
opportunity. 

There  are  evidences  of  some  apprecia- 
tion of  these  facts.  Cooking-schools  spring 
up  spasmodically,  where  in  "ten  easy 
lessons"  the  mysteries  of  theoretical  and 
practical  cooking  are  disclosed.  Some  of 
our  fashionable  boarding-schools,  ever  on 
the  alert  to  foresee  a  public  demand, 
announce  courses  in  domestic  science. 
Charity  schools  in  our  larger  cities  attempt 
to  teach  girls  cooking  and  sewing  in  con- 
nection with  arithmetic  and  grammar. 
The  great  interest  in  industrial  education 
has  had  its  influence.  In  some  cities  cook- 
ing and  sewing  have  been  made  a  part  of 
the  required  work  in  all  the  public  schools, 
not  so  much,  however,  from  a  desire  to 


62         PROGRESS  IN  THE  ^HOUSEHOLD 

teach  these  branches  as  from  a  belief  that 
the  hand  as  well  as  the  brain  needs  training. 
New  York  is  the  home  of  the  kitchen-gar- 
den, where  the  thought  of  the  originator 
has  been  to  teach  the  children  of  the  poorer 
classes  how  to  make  their  own  homes 
brighter,  rather  than  to  train  them  to  do 
housework  for  remuneration.  In  many  of 
our  large  cities  schools  have  been  estab- 
lished to  give  domestic  training,  but  this 
training,  unfortunately,  is  often  given  more 
in  name  than  in  reality.  All  these  forms 
of  activity  are  indications  of  a  desire  to 
help  lessen,  wholly  or  in  part,  the  wide- 
spread ignorance  of  domestic  work  and 
aversion  to  it. 

Several  reasons  for  this  ignorance  have 
already  been  suggested.  Housework  has 
always  been  classed  in  the  category,  not  of 
skilled  but  of  unskilled  labor.  Nor  has  it 
in  every-day  business  life  received  that 
practical  consideration  which  the  ponder- 
ous volumes  on  the  influence  of  woman 
would  lead  one  to  expect.  Popular  senti- 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC   SCIENCE       63 

ment  has  not  yet  demanded  that  when  a 
woman  marries  she  shall  possess  at  least  a 
theoretical  if  not  a  practical  knowledge  of 
household  science;  it  is  deemed  sufficient  if 
she  acquire  it  after  marriage  at  an  enormous 
cost  of  time,  patience,  energy,  sometimes 
even  of  domestic  happiness.  Nor  has 
public  opinion  demanded  that  every  woman 
who  does  not  marry  should  have  a  general 
knowledge  of  domestic  affairs ;  it  is  assumed 
that  she  has  no  use  for  such  knowledge, 
either  practically  or  as  an  accomplishment. 
When  popular  opinion  insists  that  every 
woman  who  marries  shall  have  a  practical 
familiarity  with  these  subjects  as  strongly 
as  it  insists  that  every  man  who  marries 
shall  be  able  to  provide  a  comfortable  home 
for  a  wife;  when  public  opinion  insists  that 
every  woman,  whether  she  marries  or  not, 
shall  have  an  education  so  symmetrical 
that  she  can  fulfill  any  duty  which  as  an 
individual  she  may  be  called  upon  to  per- 
form, then  will  more  serious  efforts  be  made 
toward  lessening  this  ignorance. 


64         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

This  lack  of  knowledge  explains  to  a 
certain  extent  why  so  many  are  unwilling  to 
perform  household  work.  It  is  natural 
to  dislike  work  that  brings  failure,  to  enjoy 
what  brings  success.  The  average  girl  who 
"hates  to  sew"  and  "hates  to  do  house- 
work "  would  often  find  pleasure  in  both 
did  she  but  have  systematic  knowledge  con- 
cerning the  work.  The  city  boarding-house, 
crowded  with  women  who  "can't  endure 
housekeeping,"  is  one  product  of  this  com- 
bination of  ignorance  and  aversion.  In 
New  York  City  there  are  said  to  be  but 
thirteen  thousand  families  in  individual 
houses.  The  rest  of  the  population  are 
crowded  into  tenements,  rookeries,  board- 
ing-houses, flats,  and  hotels. 

But  there  are  other  reasons  besides  igno- 
rance that  explain  this  aversion  to  house- 
hold work.  There  is  a  well-founded  belief 
that  the  majority  of  women  dislike  both 
manual  labor  and  self-supporting  labor, 
and  this  fact  applies  both  to  housekeeper 
r  and  to  housemaid.  We  have  passed  the 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC   SCIENCE       65 

stage  when  it  is  permitted  a  man  to  say, 
"The  world  owes  me  a  living."  We  not 
only  allow  a  woman  to  say  this  in  effect, 
but  we  sometimes  praise  her  for  her  woman- 
liness in  saying  it.  How  often  one  hears 
the  remark,  "Her  father  has  abundant 
means,  it  is  unnecessary  for  her  to  support 
herself."  The  average  woman  without 
family  cares  is  self-supporting  because  dire 
necessity  compels,  not  because  honorable 
work  is  the  birthright  inheritance  of  every 
human  being.  Again,  the  mistress  of  the 
household  constantly  speaks  of  the  routine 
work  of  the  house  as  drudgery,  and  the 
houseworker,  whose  chief  interest  in  it  is 
one  of  dollars  and  cents,  coins  a  still  harsher 
term,  and  calls  work  a  curse. 

This  ignorance  and  aversion  are  too 
widespread,  and  have  existed  too  many  cen- 
turies to  be  removed  in  a  single  generation, 
nor  can  we  expect  any  one  remedy  to  prove 
a  panacea.  But  we  may  ask  how  far  the 
efforts  made  have  proved  successful.  The 
cooking-school  is  now  in  vogue,  and  doubt- 


66         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

less  has  done  much  to  teach  new  ways  of 
preparing  food,  but  the  cooking-school  has 
the  same  relation  to  the  general  subject  of 
household  science  that  an  evening  class  in 
arithmetic  has  to  a  college  education.  The 
mistress  learns  a  few  things  in  a  general 
way,  and  the  maid  does  not  care  to  learn  at 
all.  It  is  ephemeral  in  its  nature,  and  while 
it  attracts  public  attention  to  the  need  of 
more  thorough  instruction  on  the  subject,  it 
is  far  from  going  to  the  root  of  the  question, 
even  of  how  to  teach  cooking.  The  same 
may  be  said  in  general  of  domestic  economy 
in  our  fashionable  schools.  Sewing  and 
cooking  as  taught  in  charity  schools  do 
apparently  give  practical  help  in  teaching 
the  children  of  the  poor  to  assist  in  the  care 
of  their  own  homes ;  but  this  work,  like  that 
done  in  the  public  schools  on  the  same  lines, 
distinctly  disclaims  any  desire  to  give  tech- 
nical information.  In  the  public  schools  the 
object  of  instruction  in  sewing  and  cooking 
is  purely  an  educational  one,  and  it  is  an 
incidental  result  scarcely  to  be  expected 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC   SCIENCE       67 

when  it  leads  girls  to  look  upon  housework 
as  a  means  of  support. 

It  has  long  been  a  belief  with  many,  and 
one  that  it  has  been  most  difficult  to  give  up, 
that  schools  for  the  training  of  domestic 
servants  would  do  more  than  anything  else 
to  solve  the  domestic  service  problem,  and 
thus  indirectly  provide  for  the  overflow  in 
shops  and  factories.  In  all  of  our  large  cities 
the  experiment  has  apparently  been  faith- 
fully tried.  The  theory  has  seemed  unex- 
ceptionable, labor  and  expense  have  not 
been  spared  to  carry  it  out,  but  the  result 
has  been,  if  not  an  utter  failure,  at  least 
far  from  commensurate  with  the  effort 
expended.  In  one  school  personally  visited 
accommodations  for  twenty  were  found. 
When  asked  what  was  done  in  case  there 
were  more  than  twenty  applicants  for  mem- 
bership in  the  class,  the  superintendent  re- 
plied that  no  such  difficulty  ever  arose,  as 
their  numbers  were  never  full.  The  answer 
was  at  least  significant. 

In  one  city  the  Women's  Guild  organized 


68         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

cooking-classes  with  the  thought  of  domestic 
service  in  mind.  In  a  demonstration  course 
where  only  ten  cents  a  lesson  was  charged, 
the  average  attendance  was  never  more  than 
fifteen  or  sixteen,  the  greatest  number  ever 
attending  being  thirty-two.  In  a  course  of 
practical  lessons  in  cooking,  given  at  equally 
reasonable  rates,  the  class  numbered  only 
four  or  five.  One  of  the  most  efficient 
managers  of  such  schools  says  after  twenty- 
five  years  of  experience  that  she  is  forced  to 
believe  that  nothing  in  this  line  can  be  done. 
Similar  testimony  comes  from  a  gentleman 
of  wide  practical  knowledge  of  philanthropic 
work  in  New  York  City,  and  on  the  theo- 
retical side  from  a  lady  widely  known  for 
her  writings  on  economic  subjects.  Miss 
Mary  Rankin  Hollar  has  recently  investi- 
gated one  hundred  schools  and  classes 
where  domestic  training  is  supposed  to  be 
given.  She  finds  that  less  than  ten  per  cent 
give  systematic  work,  and  only  two  have 
any  maids  in  their  classes.1  In  the  light  of 

1  Bulletin  Inter-Municipal  Research  Committee,  Nov.  1905. 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC  SCIENCE       69 

these  and  of  similar  facts  the  conclusion 
must  be  accepted  that  the  question  cannot, 
certainly  at  present,  be  settled  by  estab- 
lishing training-schools  for  employees,  no 
matter  how  thoroughly  equipped  or  how 
reasonable  in  charges  these  schools  may  be. 
The  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  all  these 
efforts,  from  fashionable  cooking-school  to 
charity  kitchen-garden,  have  not  been  able 
to  remove,  scarcely  to  lessen,  either  igno- 
rance or  prejudice. 

The  average  housekeeper  does  not  yet 
know  the  best,  the  easiest,  the  most  prac- 
tical, or  the  most  scientific  way  to  manage 
her  household  affairs.  Her  work  is  often 
monotonous  and  wearisome,  and  must  be 
so  until  its  true  place  as  a  profession  is 
acknowledged.  The  inexperienced  house- 
keeper recognizes  her  own  likeness  only  too 
faithfully  drawn  by  Dickens  in  Bella  and 
her  struggles  with  "The  Complete  British 
Housewife."  If  she  desires  instruction,  she 
finds  it  impossible  to  secure  it  in  a  system- 
atic way.  Kind  friends  offer  suggestions, 


70         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

the  cook-book  gives  hints,  and  the  "House- 
keepers' Guide"  bridges  over  a  temporary 
difficulty.  But  this  combination  of  instruc- 
tion in  regard  to  isolated  facts  in  housekeep- 
ing is  much  like  the  attempt  to  learn  a  new 
language  by  memorizing  words  from  the 
dictionary. 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  novice  still 
believes  that  housekeeping  can  be  learned 
only  by  experience,  nor,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  it  any  more  strange  that  in  the  effort  to 
gain  this  experience  she  too  often  breaks 
down  in  health,  or  gives  up  the  attempt 
and  resorts  to  boarding.  The  cooking- 
school  and  the  class  in  domestic  economy, 
when  taught  in  connection  with  a  dozen 
other  subjects,  will  not  solve  the  question 
for  her. 

While  the  mistress  is  unskilled  in  work, 
the  maid  will  be  unwilling  to  work.  Bridget 
does  not  suspect  that  she  does  not  rise  to 
the  social  position  to  which  she  aspires 
because  her  conversation  is  ungrammatical, 
perhaps  even  vulgar,  her  manner  insolent, 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC   SCIENCE       71 

her  spirit  rebellious,  her  dress  untidy  and 
devoid  of  taste.  She  attributes  her  ill 
success  to  the  work  in  which  she  is  engaged. 
The  facts  most  obvious  to  her  are  that 
her  mistress  does  not  understand  practical 
housework,  yet  is  socially  her  superior. 
She  at  once  draws  the  conclusion  that  house 
service  is  degrading.  She  tries  to  escape 
to  other  work  less  remunerative  but  more 
satisfactory,  and  if  she  is  unsuccessful,  re- 
turns to  house-service,  determined  to  secure 
every  possible  privilege.  She  will  not 
spend  even  three  months'  time,  or  pay  a 
nominal  sum  to  learn  housework,  as  a  trade 
or  profession.  The  training-school  for 
domestic  servants  is  a  failure  because  they 
will  not  attend  it. 

It  is  said  that  the  only  way  to  strike  at 
the  root  of  all  these  difficulties  is  to  dignify 
labor;  the  practical  question  is,  how  this  is 
to  be  accomplished.  In  the  light  of  all  that 
has  been  done  to  attain  this  end,  and  the 
reasons  for  the  comparative  failure  which 
has  followed,  may  we  not  say  that  one  great 


72         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

difficulty  has  been  the  fact  that  reform  has 
begun  at  the  wrong  end  ?  unless  the  chasm 
has  been  bridged  between  kitchen  and 
parlor  we  cannot  dignify  labor  in  the 
kitchen  alone.  All  true  reform  must  be- 
gin at  the  top.  This  has  been  the  exper- 
ience of  every  great  movement  that  has 
looked  toward  the  improvement  of  man- 
kind. 

But  what  is  the  relation  that  college 
women  bear  to  these  problems  of  the  house- 
hold? They  cannot  revolutionize  society, 
nor  would  they  if  they  could.  They  can- 
not bring  about  any  reform  either  in  mis- 
tress or  in  maid.  It  may  be  answered  truly 
that  they  can  do  but  little.  They  are  few 
in  numbers  —  and  they  cannot  assume  the 
ability  to  settle  questions  with  which  previ- 
ous generations  of  women  have  not  been 
able  to  grapple.  But  are  they  justified  in 
shielding  themselves  behind  these  excuses 
and  in  refusing  to  look  the  question  square- 
ly in  the  face  ?  Women  have  proved  them- 
selves equal  both  mentally  and  physically 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC  SCIENCE       73 

to  a  college  course,  but  if  their  training  does 
not  lead  them  to  assist  in  the  discussion  of 
some  of  these  vexed  questions  pertaining 
to  the  welfare  of  society,  it  may  seriously 
be  asked  whether  the  higher  education  of 
women  is  worth  all  that  it  has  cost.  A 
statement  as  to  what  college  women  are  now 
doing  may  perhaps  be  of  help  in  answering 
what  can  be  done. 

A  few  years  since  a  carefully  prepared 
paper  read  before  the  Association  of  Col- 
legiate Alumnse,  showed  that  of  the  2619 
women  graduates  of  the  fourteen  colleges 
then  represented  in  the  association,  thirty- 
eight  per  cent  were  married,  thirty-six  per 
cent  were  teaching,  five  per  cent  were  en- 
gaged in  other  occupations  and  professions, 
and  twenty  per  cent  were  "  at  home,"  that  is 
engaged  in  no  occupation  for  remuneration. 
Those  married  and  at  home,  to  whom  the 
subject  of  domestic  science  is  presumably  of 
most  interest,  form  fifty-nine  per  cent  of  the 
whole  number,  while  the  forty-one  per  cent 
engaged  in  teaching  and  other  occupations 


74         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

are  certainly  not  indifferent  to  it.  With 
trained  mind  and  a  realization  that  oppor- 
tunity has  brought  responsibility,  most  often 
in  a  position  where  domestic  affairs  are 
those  most  prominently  before  her,  the 
woman  who  is  a  college  graduate  is  espe- 
cially well  situated  to  turn  her  attention  to 
this  subject. 

What  can  she  do  ?  She  can  prove,  as  she 
is  proving,  that  her  college  education  has 
not  unfitted  her  for  domestic  pursuits. 
Before  the  college  door  was  opened  to  them, 
the  education  of  women  was  largely  a 
matter  of  information  and  accomplish- 
ment. Within  two  generations  systematic 
training  has  been  substituted  for  the  acqui- 
sition of  information  and  the  advantage  of 
this  change  should  be  seen  first  in  improved 
methods  of  domestic  work.  The  college 
graduate  who  is  married  or  who  is  at  home 
can  prove  more  effectually  than  any  other 
class  of  graduates  the  practical  utility  of 
college  education  for  women.  She  can 
prove  how  puerile  is  the  assertion  that  the 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC  SCIENCE      75 

average  girl  does  not  need  a  thorough 
course  of  technical  study,  because  her 
household  duties  will  not  demand  a  know- 
ledge of  these  subjects.  The  lawyer  forgets 
his  science,  the  business-man  his  classics, 
the  theologian  his  mathematics,  and  the 
physician  his  metaphysics,  yet  each  proves 
daily  the  value  of  these  studies.  So  the 
college  woman  brings  into  every-day  life, 
and  may  bring  still  more,  the  evidences  of 
the  advantage  to  her  of  a  college  course. 
She  may  go  further,  and  show  that  re- 
sources within  herself  enable  her  to  rise 
above  much  of  the  inevitable  drudgery  of 
household  work,  and  thus  overcome,  in  a 
measure,  the  common  distaste  for  routine 
duties. 

The  college  woman  can  do  much  by  way 
of  discussion.  The  love  of  study  fostered 
by  her  college  course  shows  itself  after 
graduation  in  the  formation  of  clubs  and 
societies  for  literary  work.  There  is  scarcely 
a  town  that  has  not  from  one  to  a  dozen, 
and  there  are  few  college  women  who  have 


76         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

not  belonged  to  one  or  more.  There  is  a 
tendency,  too,  for  college  women  to  organ- 
ize among  themselves  select  classes  for  the 
pursuit  of  favorite  studies.  All  of  these 
clubs  are  valuable  up  to  a  certain  point 
in  giving  help  through  association,  but  in 
too  many  cases  they  seem  examples  of 
misdirected  effort.  Their  great  numbers 
show  that  women  have  time  and  interest  to 
give  to  intellectual  matters.  Cannot  college 
women  divert  a  part  of  this  zeal  from  the 
discussion,  for  example,  of  the  tulip  mania 
in  Holland,  into  the  channels  of  social  and 
domestic  science  ?  No  company  of  political 
economists  will  ever  work  out  for  women 
"the  servant-girl  problem,"  or  make  it 
possible  for  women  to  learn  systematic 
housekeeping.  The  college  woman  can  do 
something  —  not  everything  —  by  showing 
that  these  subjects  deserve  consideration; 
that  their  proper  place  on  the  programme  of 
the  women's  club  is  not  the  closing  half -hour 
of  informal  conversation,  but  the  post  of 
honor  as  one  of  the  chief  subjects  of  thought 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC   SCIENCE       77 

and  study.  But  she  need  not  wait  for  the 
movements  of  the  literary  club;  she  can 
herself  organize  a  society  whose  sole  purpose 
shall  be  the  discussion  of  ways  and  means  to 
lessen  the  friction  in  the  ordinary  household 
between  mistress  and  maid,  to  remedy  the 
scarcity  of  competent  help,  to  relieve  the 
overburdened  housewife,  a  society  which 
shall  attempt  to  understand  the  "sales- 
lady" situation,  and  to  study  the  causes  of 
the  prejudice  that  still  clings  to  household 
service  as  well  as  the  means  of  removing  it. 
She  can  help  to  show  women  that  it  is  a 
matter  of  more  vital  interest  to  themselves 
and  to  society  as  a  whole  to  discuss  these 
topics  than  to  seek  after  information  that 
may  not  be  worth  the  acquisition. 

There  is  another  phase  of  the  question 
the  thoughtful  consideration  of  which  the 
college  woman  can  urge.  She  can  at  least 
make  the  attempt  —  her  prospects  of  suc- 
cess may  seem  dubious  —  to  bring  before 
her  sisters  the  subject  of  the  wise  expend- 
iture of  money.  Women  have  bequeathed 


78        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

fortunes  for  every  object  from  the  endow- 
ment of  theological  seminaries  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  hospital  for  invalid  cats;  they 
have  multiplied  buildings  and  apparatus 
that  language  and  science  might  be  taught 
according  to  the  Presbyterian,  the  Baptist, 
or  the  Methodist  creed.  The  college  woman 
may  at  least  suggest  that  a  long-felt  want 
has  been  that  of  a  polytechnic,  an  institu- 
tion where  the  college  graduate  can  learn 
household  science  as  a  serious  profession, 
as  an  advocate  or  physician  studies  the 
principles  of  law  and  medicine.  Such  an 
institution,  requiring  a  college  degree  for 
admission,  and  providing  in  a  two  years' 
course  for  instruction  in  sanitary  science, 
physiology  and  hygiene,  the  care  of  the  sick, 
cooking,  marketing,  the  care  of  the  house, 
sewing,  the  principles  of  the  kindergarten, 
artistic  house-furnishing,  domestic  econo- 
my, and  such  other  subjects  as  belong  dis- 
tinctively to  the  care  of  the  house  and  home, 
would  certainly  have  for  a  few  years  a 
limited  number  of  students.  An  examina- 


WOMEN  AND  DOMESTIC   SCIENCE       79 

tion,  however,  of  all  that  has  been  done  and 
of  the  underlying  principles  leads  to  the 
conclusion  that  more  could  ultimately  be 
done  in  this  way  than  in  any  other  to  dignify 
that  part  of  labor  connected  with  domestic 
occupations.  It  would  most  certainly  not 
do  everything  —  no  one  thing  could  do  that 
-  but  it  would  do  much. 
In  a  word,  the  relation  of  college  women 
to  the  question  of  domestic  science  is  first  of 
all  the  duty  of  recognizing  the  importance 
of  the  subject  itself,  and  of  its  special  im- 
portance to  them  as  college  women;  and 
second,  a  duty  of  examination,  of  discus- 
sion, of  intelligent  study,  of  appeal  to  public 
sentiment,  of  effort  to  secure  at  no  distant 
day  the  establishment  of  a  technical  school 
of  domestic  science  which  shall  in  no  sense 
be  a  substitute  for  collegiate  and  academic 
training,  but  shall  be  built  upon  such  train- 
ing as  its  most  secure  foundation.  The 
present  strain  coming  upon  the  majority  of 
women  is  too  great  to  be  much  longer  borne. 
Relief  must  come,  either  in  improved  facil- 


80        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

ities  for  individual  work,  or  in  cooperative 
enterprises.  The  home  must  be  preserved, 
and  at  the  same  time  household  work  must 
be  reduced  to  a  minimum.  College  women 
owe  it  to  themselves  and  to  society  to  do 
their  part  toward  attaining  this  end. 


SAIREY  GAMP  AND  DORA 
COPPERFIELD 


SAIREY  GAMP 
AND  DORA  COPPERFIELD 

A  WHOLESOME  corrective  for  the  impatience 
with  which  we  are  wont  to  regard  the  lack 
of  progress  made  in  regard  to  all  matters 
which  concern  the  house  and  home  was 
found  at  a  recent  International  Health 
Exposition  held  in  New  York  City.  In  one 
section  was  arranged  an  old-time  sick-room, 
presided  over  by  Sairey  Gamp.  The  clock 
on  the  mantel  pointed  to  the  hour  of  mid- 
night, and  the  patient  was  presumably 
sleeping,  but  on  a  feather  bed,  under  heavy 
comfortables,  with  thick  draperies  hanging 
about  the  large  high-post  bedstead.  On 
a  table  by  the  bedside  were  the  remedies 
administered, —  paregoric,  salts,  castor-oil, 
goose-grease,  and  other  tradition-honored 
medicines.  Another  table  bore  the  remains 
of  the  patient's  supper, —  fried  ham,  bread 
and  butter,  cucumbers,  and  milk.  Sairey 


84         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

herself  reposed  in  an  armchair,  flanked,  on 
one  side,  by  the  empty  gin-bottle,  and,  on 
the  other,  by  a  pot  of  tea. 

In  a  neighboring  booth  was  found  a 
motley  collection  of  old-time  remedies.  It 
comprised  elderberry  flowers  for  pleurisy, 
honey  for  insomnia,  hornet's-nest  tea  for 
colds,  baking-soda  for  the  stomach  and  for 
bee-stings,  cold  potatoes  for  burns,  and  hot 
potatoes  for  ear-aches,  cobwebs  for  hemor- 
rhage, a  cat's  skin  for  pneumonia,  to  be 
applied  while  the  animal  was  still  warm, 
and  bags  of  camphor  and  assafoetida  to  be 
worn  around  the  neck  for  protection  against 
disease.  All  of  these  remedies  are  within 
the  recollection  of  most  persons  who  have 
not  yet  passed  middle  life. 

These  two  booths  were  the  text  from 
which  the  silent  sermon  of  comparison  was 
preached  by  the  eighty  booths  containing 
the  educational  exhibits  of  the  training- 
schools  for  nurses  and  of  many  modern 
hospitals.  The  old-time  sick-room  has 
given  place  to  one  not  only  attractive  to  the 


SAIREY  GAMP  AND  DORA  COPPERFIELD    85 

eye,  but  furnished  with  every  scientific 
appliance  for  the  prevention  as  well  as  for 
the  cure  of  disease.  In  place  of  Mrs.  Gamp 
is  the  trained  nurse  of  to-day,  attractive 
in  dress,  agreeable  in  manner,  intelligent 
in  mind,  scientific  in  methods  of  work, 
a  friend  and  a  companion,  as  well  as  a  staff 
and  a  dependence.  The  contrast  could 
not  be  more  world-wide.  Yet  the  time 
required  to  revolutionize  methods  of  car- 
ing for  the  sick  has  been  scarcely  more 
than  thirty  years.  The  exhibit  shown  of 
a  ward  in  Bellevue  Hospital,  in  1872,  is 
almost  as  far  removed  from  a  modern 
hospital  ward  of  to-day  as  it  is  from  Mrs. 
Gamp. 

What  is  the  explanation  of  the  trans- 
formation of  Mrs.  Gamp  into  the  trained 
nurse,  and  of  the  evolution  of  the  modern 
hospital  and  the  modern  sick-chamber 
from  the  old-time  crude,  semi-barbarous 
methods  of  treatment  ? 

The  secret  of  it  all  lies  in  the  one  word,— 
investigation.    Investigation  is  the  product 


86         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

of  training,  of  education,  of  an  eager  and 
absorbing  desire  for  knowledge,  of  minds 
open  to  conviction  and  ready  to  hold  the 
judgment  in  suspense  until  it  can  be  based 
on  facts.  The  steps  in  the  process  of  the 
evolution  are  equally  clear.  Given  an  in- 
vestigating spirit,  it  follows  that  every 
investigator  must  work  with  singleness  of 
purpose,  in  his  search  for  facts,  that  is,  for 
truth;  and  that  this  truth,  when  found,  is  to 
be  held,  not  as  a  personal  acquisition,  but 
as  a  good  to  be  shared  with  all.  Thus  pro- 
gress is  made,  not  through  the  individual 
efforts  of  isolated  investigators,  who  are 
working  along  parallel  lines,  but  it  is  made 
by  geometrical  progression,  because  each 
investigator  is  able  to  take,  as  a  starting- 
point,  the  goal  reached  by  his  predecessor, 
and  because  he  knows  that  he  is  cooperat- 
ing with  all  other  investigators  to  secure  the 
same  end.  Everywhere  to-day  scientists 
appreciate  the  fact  that  progress  in  science 
is  conditioned  on  scientific  investigation. 
They  also  appreciate  the  fact  that  this  pro- 


SAIREY  GAMP  AND  DORA  COPPERFIELD    87 

gress  can  be  made  only  as  each  investigator 
shares  in  the  results  obtained  by  every  other 
investigator.  Every  scientific  discovery 
made  by  one  scientist  becomes  the  common 
property  of  all.  In  this  apparently  simple 
fact  lies  the  explanation  of  the  disappear- 
ance of  Sairey  Gamp. 

"Martin  Chuzzlewit"  was  published  six 
years  before  the  first  part  of  "David  Cop- 
perfield"  was  issued.  But  while  Mrs. 
Gamp  has  become  but  a  name,  Dora 
Copperfield  is  still  with  us,  and  he  would  be 
a  rash  prophet  who  would  venture  to  pre- 
dict the  times  and  the  seasons  that  wait 
upon  her  going. 

Why  does  Dora  Copperfield  still  tarry? 
Again  the  explanation  is  not  far  to  seek. 
The  household  has  not  yet  become  a  field 
for  investigation.  It  resents  intrusion  into 
its  domain  and  regards  investigators  as 
Paul  Prys.  It  is  sensitive  to  criticism,  and 
it  considers  a  suggestion  of  change  as  an 
unwarrantable  interference  with  its  affairs, 
and  as  an  attack  on  it  by  outsiders.  It  does 


88         PROGRESS.  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

not  take  kindly  to  new  ideas,  and  it  often 
rejects  them  on  a  priori  grounds,  not  be- 
cause experiment  has  proved  them  wrong. 
Clothed  in  a  mantle  of  virtue,  it  feels  itself 
above  criticism,  because  the  home  is  of 
divine  origin. 

Yet  although  intuition  and  instinct  have 
so  long  been  made  to  play  the  part  in  the 
household  that  ought  to  be  taken  by  scien- 
tific investigation,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to 
believe  that  a  change  must  in  time  come. 
It  is  not  many  years  since  illness  was  attrib- 
uted to  divine  interposition,  which  to-day 
is  known  to  be  the  result  of  impure  water, 
defective  drainage,  insufficient  nourish- 
ment, or  lack  of  ventilation.  We  must  in 
time,  although  the  specific  time  cannot  be 
predicted,  come  to  believe  that  women's 
minds  have  been  given  them  to  use,  and 
that  nowhere  can  they  be  used  more  effect- 
ively than  in  the  organization  and  manage- 
ment of  a  household. 

This  comparison  has  been  suggested, 
because  the  question  is  so  often  asked: 


SAIREY  GAMP  AND  DORA  COPPERFIELD    89 

Why  can  we  not  have  trained  domestics  as 
we  have  trained  nurses  ?  The  answer  must 
be  that,  in  the  present  condition  of  affairs, 
the  resemblance  between  nurses  and  domes- 
tics is  only  superficial.  The  trained  nurse  is 
the  product,  not  of  the  family  that  has  suf- 
fered from  the  lack  of  such  trained  service, 
but  of  the  discovery  by  the  medical  pro- 
fession that  its  labors  must  be  ineffectual  if 
orders  are  not  carried  out  by  those  who 
understand  the  reasons  why  these  orders 
are  given.  The  more  rapid  the  advance  in 
scientific  investigation  made  in  the  medical 
world,  the  more  rapid  the  advance  made  in 
all  grades  of  service  connected  with  the 
medical  profession.  Pressure  is  exerted 
from  above  and  works  downwards.  More 
and  more  the  subject  of  health  becomes 
one  of  the  prevention,  rather  than  of  the 
cure,  of  ill  health.  The  distance  between 
physician  and  nurse  and  nurse  and  patient 
grows  less  as  each  understands  better  the 
function  each  has  to  perform  in  securing 
good  health. 


90        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

Some  parts  of  the  household  have  already 
been  put  on  a  scientific  basis.  It  is  to-day 
protected  from  impure  water-supply,  from 
defective  drainage,  from  poisonous  foods, 
from  contagious  diseases,  but  not  through 
the  efforts  of  the  household  itself.  These 
benefits  it  has  reaped  through  the  labors  of 
scientific  experts  who,  through  unwearied 
investigation,  have  discovered  the  means  of 
preventing  certain  large  classes  of  diseases. 
Sanitary  engineering  and  sanitary  chemistry 
have  become  professions  through  the  work 
of  scientific  investigators.  When  house- 
keepers, through  scientific  investigation, 
have  made  a  profession  of  housekeeping, 
then,  and  not  till  then,  will  trained  service 
in  the  household  be  possible. 

It  is  very  easy  to  see  why  progress  in  the 
household  has  up  to  this  time  been  so  slow, 
and  why  it  has,  for  the  most  part,  been 
made  through  forces  exerted  from  without 
rather  than  from  within.  But  the  Chinese 
wall  that  has  so  long  surrounded  it  is  giving 
way,  and  the  signs  of  the  times  point  to 


SAIREY  GAMP  AND  DORA  COPPERFIELD    91 

another  international  exposition,  when,  side 
by  side  with  Mrs.  Gamp  and  the  trained 
nurse,  will  be  found  Dora  Copperfield  and 
the  new  home, —  the  product  of  the  trained 
minds  of  scientific  investigators. 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  DOMESTIC 
SERVICE 


ECONOMICS   AND   ETHICS   IN 
DOMESTIC  SERVICE 

THE  cynic  observed  yesterday  that  the 
interests  of  womankind  were  confined  to  the 
three  D's  — Dress,  Disease,  and  Domestics. 
To-day  the  bicycle  has  become  a  formidable 
competitor  of  dress  and  promises  to  do  its 
part  toward  settling  some  of  the  disputed 
questions  in  regard  to  the  rival  it  has  par- 
tially supplanted.  Biology  is  wrestling  with 
disease,  and  bids  fair  to  be  the  victor. 
Domestics  still  hold  the  field,  but  if  business 
methods  are  introduced  into  the  household, 
as  it  seems  inevitable  will  be  the  case,  the 
interests  of  women  will  have  passed  on  and 
upward  from  the  three  D's  to  the  three  B's, 
and  the  cynic  will  be  forced  to  turn  his 
attention  from  woman  to  a  more  fruitful 
field. 

It  is  not  indeed  strange  that  the  old  con- 
ception of  household  service  should  have 


96        PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

yielded  so  slowly  its  place  in  the  thoughts  of 
women.  The  whole  subject  of  economic 
theory  of  which  it  is  but  a  part  is  itself  a 
recent  comer  in  the  field  of  discussion; 
it  was  scarcely  more  than  a  century  and 
a  quarter  ago  that  Adam  Smith  wrote  his 
'  Wealth  of  Nations "  and  gave  a  new 
direction  to  economic  thought. 

As  a  result  of  these  economic  studies  of 
the  present  century  something  has  already 
been  done  to  improve  industrial  conditions 
outside  of  the  household.  They  have  led  to 
improved  factory  legislation,  to  better  rela- 
tions between  employer  and  employee,  to 
wide  discussion  of  the  principles  on  which 
business  is  conducted,  but  what  has  been 
accomplished  has  been  brought  about 
through  an  unrest  and  an  agitation  that 
have  often  brought  disaster  in  their  train. 

From  this  general  economic  discussion 
the  household  has  been  in  the  main  cut  off, 
largely  because  it  has  been  considered  as 
belonging  to  the  domain  of  sentiment  rather 
than  of  business,  because  the  household  has 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    97 

shrunk  from  all  agitation  and  discussion  of 
the  questions  with  which  it  is  immediately 
concerned,  because  it  has  refused  to  see 
that  progress  is  conditioned  on  this  agita- 
tion and  discussion,  because  it  has  cried 
"  Peace,  peace,  when  there  was  no  peace." 
It  is  this  very  aloofness  that  constitutes 
to-day  the  most  serious  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  any  improvement  in  domestic  service  — 
the  failure  on  the  part  of  men  and  women 
everywhere  to  recognize  that  the  occupation 
is  governed  by  economic  law,  that  it  is 
bound  up  inextricably  with  every  other 
phase  of  the  labor  question,  and  that  the 
initial  step  toward  improvement  must  be  the 
recognition  of  this  fact.  Housekeepers 
everywhere  resent  what  they  deem  interfer- 
ence with  their  personal  affairs;  they  betray 
an  ill-concealed  irritation  when  the  eco- 
nomic side  of  the  question  is  presented  to 
them,  and  they  believe,  if  their  own  house- 
hold machinery  runs  smoothly,  that  no 
friction  exists  anywhere  and  that  their  own 
responsibility  has  ceased.  Nothing  to-day 


98         PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

is  so  characteristic  of  women  as  a  class  as 
their  inability  to  assume  an  impersonal  atti- 
tude toward  any  subject  under  discussion, 
while  in  methods  of  work  they  are  prone 
to  work  from  day  to  day  and  seldom  plan 
for  results  to  be  reached  years  after  a  pro- 
ject has  been  set  on  foot. 

This  means  that  before  any  improvement 
in  household  affairs  can  come,  the  attitude 
of  mind  with  which  they  are  approached 
must  undergo  a  radical  change;  both  men 
and  women  must  recognize  the  analogy  be- 
tween domestic  service  and  other  forms  of 
labor,  and  must  work,  not  for  more  compe- 
tent cooks  and  parlor-maids  in  their  indi- 
vidual households,  not  for  any  specific 
change  for  the  better  to-morrow,  but  for  im- 
provements in  the  system  —  improvements, 
the  benefits  of  which  will  be  reaped  not  by 
this  but  by  subsequent  generations.  It  is 
a  fact  from  which  we  cannot  escape  that 
domestic  service  has  been  affected  by  his- 
torical and  economic  development,  that  it  is 
to-day  affected  by  economic  conditions,  that 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    99 

it  must  in  the  future  be  in  like  manner 
affected  by  them.  That  we  do  not  all  see 
these  facts  does  not  in  the  least  alter  their 
existence.  Nothing  is  so  inexorable  as  law. 
Law  works  itself  out  whether  recognized  or 
not.  If  we  accept  the  workings  of  the  law 
and  aid  in  its  natural  development,  peace 
and  harmony  result;  if  we  resist  the  action 
of  law  and  struggle  against  it,  we  do  not 
stay  its  progress  but  we  injure  ourselves  as 
the  bird  that  beats  its  wings  against  prison- 
bars.  "Delhi  is  far,"  said  the  old  king  of 
Delhi  when  told  that  an  enemy  had  crossed 
his  border.  "Delhi  is  far,"  he  answered 
when  told  that  the  enemy  was  in  sight. 
"Delhi  is  far,"  he  repeated  when  the  enemy 
was  at  the  gate.  "Delhi  is  far,"  he  still 
repeated  when  the  sword  of  the  enemy  was 
at  his  throat. 

Yet  certainly  we  may  hope  that  another 
view  is  coming  to  prevail,  and  that  house- 
keepers will  not  shrink  from  the  storm  and 
stress  period  that  is  the  inevitable  accom- 
paniment of  discussion  of  household  affairs, 


100       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

but  will  bring  the  courage  of  their  convic- 
tions to  bear  on  the  discussion  of  the  pro- 
blem. It  is  indeed  encouraging  to  find  so 
many  of  them  beginning  their  studies  of 
household  affairs,  not  with  a  proposal  of 
remedies  that  may  chance  to  meet  the  dis- 
ease, but  with  a  recognition  of  the  existence 
of  a  great  question  to  be  investigated,  with 
a  determination  to  understand  the  problem. 
What  is  the  problem  that  is  presented  to 
the  housekeeper?  To  have  a  healthy, 
happy,  virtuous  and  useful  household.  What 
are  some  of  the  external  conditions  neces- 
sary to  such  a  household  ?  Palatable,  nour- 
ishing food,  regularity  of  meals,  prompt  and 
efficient  service.  With  what  tools  has  the 
young  housekeeper  heretofore  been  expected 
to  grapple  with  the  problem  in  her  own 
home?  Instinct,  intuition,  love  of  home, 
the  cardinal  virtues,  especially  meekness 
and  humility,  orthodox  views  in  regard  to 
the  relation  of  the  housekeeper  to  her  home, 
and  a  belief  that  personal  experience,  how- 
ever restricted,  is  an  infallible  guide. 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    101 

What  has  been  the  result?  Often  dis- 
astrous failure,  sometimes  a  measurable 
degree  of  success,  always  an  unnecessary 
expenditure  of  time,  money,  and  mental, 
physical,  and  spiritual  energy.  That  most 
pathetic  story  in  "Pratt  Portraits,"  "A  New 
England  Quack,"  has  had  more  than  one 
counterpart  in  the  household.  The  results 
of  innocent  quackery  there  may  not  always 
be  so  consciously  pathetic,  the  effects  may 
be  more  subtile,  but  they  are  none  the  less 
fatal.  Dora  Copperfield  has  been,  unhap- 
pily for  the  race,  no  mere  picture  of  the 
imagination. 

The  problem  should  not  in  itself  be  an 
insoluble  one ;  a  happy,  well-ordered  house- 
hold ought  to  be  the  normal  condition  of 
every  home.  But  to  expect  to  secure  this 
end  with  the  means  given  a  young  house- 
keeper is  often  to  expect  the  impossible. 
Behind  the  housekeeper  is  not  only  personal 
ignorance  but  all  the  force  of  tradition;  she 
must  face  difficulties  so  deep-seated  as  to 
seem  almost  inherent  and  ineradicable. 


102       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

One  of  the  greatest  of  these  difficulties  is 
the  belief  that  the  subject  is  not  worthy  of 
consideration  and  that  time  and  strength 
are  wasted  in  discussing  it.  This  attitude 
of  mind  is  well  illustrated  by  Lord  Orrery's 
"Remarks  on  the  Life  and  Writings  of 
Swift,"  apropos  of  Swift's  "General  In- 
structions to  Servants."  *  Lord  Orrery  may 
not  indeed  have  been  altogether  free  from 
malice  and  jealousy  in  penning  these  words, 
and  he  certainly  showed  himself  deficient  in 
a  sense  of  humor,  but  whatever  his  motive, 
his  comments  on  Swift's  work  illustrate 
fairly  well  a  belief  still  prevalent.  "How 
much  time,"  Lord  Orrery  comments, "  must 
have  been  employed  in  putting  together  such 
a  work!  What  an  intenseness  of  thought 
must  have  been  bestowed  upon  the  lowest 
and  most  slavish  scenes  of  life!  ....  A 
man  of  Swift's  genius  ought  constantly  to 
have  soared  into  higher  regions.  He  ought 
to  have  looked  upon  persons  of  inferior 
abilities  as  children,  whom  nature  had 

1  Works  of  Svnft,  xi,  365-441. 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    103 

appointed  him  to  instruct,  encourage,  and 
improve.  Superior  talents  seem  to  have 
been  intended  by  Providence  as  public 
benefits ;  and  the  person  who  possesses  such 
blessings  is  certainly  answerable  to  heaven 
for  those  endowments  which  he  enjoys 
above  the  rest  of  mankind.  Let  him  jest 
with  dignity,  and  let  him  be  ironical  upon 
useful  subjects;  leaving  poor  slaves  to  heat 
their  porridge,  or  drink  their  small  beer,  in 
such  vessels  as  they  shall  find  proper."  * 

Another  great  difficulty  is  the  persistent 
refusal  to  consider  domestic  service  as  a 
question  of  general  interest  and  a  part  of 
the  labor  question  of  the  day.  "What  is 
needed,"  an  English  critic  remarks,  "is  an 
infallible  recipe  for  securing  a  good  .£16 
girl  and  for  keeping  her  when  secured." 
But  alas,  who  shall  give  an  infallible  recipe 
for  accomplishing  the  impossible?  Who 
shall  lay  down  the  principle  that  will  make 
coal-miners  contented  with  low  wages  and 

1  Cited  from  Remarks  on  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Swift, 
p.  179,  in  Works  of  Swift,  xi,  365. 


104       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

long  hours,  that  will  make  the  employers  of 
masons  satisfied  with  bungling  work  that 
threatens  life  and  limb,  that  will  lull  into 
ease  a  conscience  aroused  by  the  iniquities 
of  the  sweating  system?  Nothing  can  be 
more  chimerical  than  to  expect  a  perfect 
automatic  adjustment  of  the  household 
machinery  while  other  parts  of  the  indus- 
trial world  are  not  in  harmonious  relation  to 
each  other. 

A  third  obstacle  is  the  persistent  belief 
that  nothing  can  be  done  until  this  magic 
recipe  has  been  discovered.  If  it  is  sug- 
gested that  one  measure  of  alleviation  is  to 
take  a  part  of  the  work  out  of  the  household 
it  is  answered  that  it  is  useless  to  propose  it 
because  all  work  cannot  be  taken  out  of  the 
household,  because  the  plan  would  not 
work  in  the  rural  districts,  because  it  would 
not  meet  the  case  in  England,  because  it  is 
expensive.  Certainly  all  these  are  valid 
objections  to  considering  the  plan  a  sover- 
eign remedy.  But  to  refuse  to  try  a  remedy 
that  may  prove  of  benefit  in  some  house- 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    105 

holds  because  it  will  not  work  in  all  is  quite 
the  same  as  to  refuse  to  administer  a  medi- 
cine in  case  of  fever  because  it  will  not  also 
cure  consumption. 

The  preceding  is  illustrative  of  another 
difficulty  that  is  implied  in  it  —  a  funda- 
mental ignorance  on  the  part  of  many  house- 
keepers of  the  processes  of  reasoning.  This 
is  illustrated  by  the  reasoning  that  many  go 
through  with  in  discussing  the  question : 

"  Public  laundries  are  in  the  hands  of  men 
whose  standard  of  perfection  in  laundry- 
work  is  a  smooth  shirt-front  and  a  stiff 
collar  and  cuff.  This  standard  of  perfection 
cannot  be  applied  to  the  laundering  of 
linen  and  children's  clothing.  Therefore, 
table-linen  and  children's  clothing  must  be 
laundered  in  the  house." 

"  My  mother's  cook  received  a  part  of 
her  wages  in  lodging  and  board.  My  cook 
receives  a  part  of  her  wages  in  lodging  and 
board.  Therefore,  my  daughter's  cook  will 
receive  a  part  of  her  wages  in  lodging  and 
board." 


106       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

"  Negro  employees  lodge  out  of  the 
house  at  the  South.  White  employees  do 
not  lodge  out  of  the  house  in  England. 
Therefore  employees  cannot  lodge  out  of 
the  house  at  the  North." 

"  Employees  should  be  treated  with  con- 
sideration. My  employees  are  treated  with 
consideration.  Therefore  all  employees  are 
treated  with  consideration." 

"Some  employees  are  incompetent.  Good 
results  cannot  be  secured  with  incompetent 
employees.  Therefore  good  service  is  im- 
possible." 

The  only  way  of  meeting  this  difficulty  is 
found  in  the  slow  process  of  careful,  system- 
atic education.  What  many  housekeepers 
need  is  not  so  much  instruction  in  cooking 
or  domestic  sanitation  as  training  in  cal- 
culus and  quaternions,  Herodotus  and  Livy, 
logic  and  geology. 

Still  another  hindrance  is  the  tone  of  cer- 
tainty and  finality  that  characterizes  all 
discussions  concerning  the  household.  It 
is  a  part  of  the  religious  belief  of  many  per- 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    107 

sons  that  every  woman  has  been  foreor- 
dained by  Providence  to  be  a  wife,  mother, 
and  housekeeper,  and  that  any  deviation 
from  this  fundamental  law  is  an  infringe- 
ment on  the  designs  of  Providence.  '  But 
some  of  us  remember  that  scarcely  more 
than  fifty  years  ago  Daniel  Webster  said  in 
the  United  States  Senate  that  slavery  had 
been  excluded  from  California  and  New 
Mexico  by  the  law  of  nature,  of  physical 
geography,  the  law  of  the  formation  of  the 
earth,  and  that  he  would  not  through  the 
Wilmot  Proviso  take  pains  uselessly  to  re- 
affirm an  ordinance  of  nature  or  to  reenact 
the  will  of  God.  Many  apparently  believe, 
through  the  same  specious  reasoning,  that 
to  provide  instruction  in  household  affairs 
would  be  in  a  similar  way  to  reaffirm  an 
ordinance  of  nature. 

Not  only  does  this  tone  of  finality  char- 
acterize the  household  when  it  is  assumed 
that  because  the  majority  of  women  will 
always  choose  to  be  housekeepers,  therefore 
all  women  must  be  housekeepers,  but  the 


108       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

same  tone  of  finality  also  characterizes 
methods  in  the  household.  It  is  interesting 
to  read  to-day  the  objections  raised  fifty 
years  ago  to  the  use  of  anesthetics  in  sur- 
gery; it  was  argued  that  since  pain  was  sent 
by  heaven,  it  was  sacrilegious  to  use  any 
means  of  alleviating  it.  It  may  be  of  equal 
interest  fifty  years  hence  to  read  the  pro- 
tests of  our  contemporaries  against  the  pre- 
sent effort  to  combat  instinct  with  science. 

Another  difficulty  is  the  inherent  prone- 
ness  of  Americans  to  look  for  results  before 
establishing  the  conditions  on  which  alone 
results  are  to  be  based.  The  nervous  haste 
that  characterizes  us  physically  as  a  nation 
also  characterizes  us  mentally.  We  seize 
eagerly  suggestions  and  scorn  the  slow 
processes  through  which  alone  suggestions 
can  be  made  realities;  then  comes  the  in- 
evitable reaction  and  we  drift  into  the  fatal- 
istic tendency  to  put  up  with  evils  rather 
than  fight  against  them. 

One  other  general  difficulty  is  the  as- 
sumption that  any  improvement  in  domes- 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    109 

tic  service  must  mean  putting  the  domestic 
employee  on  a  plane  of  absolute  equality 
with  the  employer.  Yet  nothing  could  be 
farther  from  the  truth  than  this.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  equality  ever  meant 
either  in  America  or  in  France  what  the 
rhetorical  phrases  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  the  Declaration  of  the 
Rights  of  Man  would  on  the  surface  seem 
to  imply.  Certainly  to-day  we  interpret 
equality  to  mean  that  all  persons  should 
have  the  opportunity  of  making  of  them- 
selves all  that  is  possible;  to  jump  at  the 
conclusion  that  reform  in  domestic  service 
means  subscription  to  the  literal  interpreta- 
tion of  the  preamble  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  is  to  make  an  unwarranted 
assumption.  If,  however,  we  were  to 
accept  the  doctrine  of  equality,  it  would  be 
with  an  appreciation  of  what  it  involves. 
The  establishment  of  social  equality  would 
sometimes  mean  the  elevation  of  the  em- 
ployer to  the  natural  social  and  moral 
position  of  the  employee.  Our  present 


110      PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

social  status  is  well  characterized  by  the  late 
Lawrence  Oliphant  in  "The  Tender  Recol- 
lections of  Irene  Macgillicuddy,"  where 
the  heroine  describes  her  mother,  suddenly 
elevated  in  the  social  scale,  as  being  very 
democratic  toward  all  those  who  were 
socially  above  her  and  very  aristocratic 
toward  all  those  who  were  socially  below 
her.  It  is  specious,  not  genuine,  demo- 
cracy that  to-day  blocks  the  progress  of 
improvement  in  domestic  service. 

These  are  general  conditions  that  con- 
front any  and  all  attempts  to  put  the  house- 
hold on  a  more  reasonable  basis.  Not  less 
serious  are  the  specific  economic  conditions 
existing  in  the  household.  One  of  these  is 
the  truck  system  of  wages. 

In  every  other  occupation  the  truck  sys- 
tem has  disappeared;  formerly  the  teacher 
boarded  around,  the  minister  received  an 
annual  donation  party,  and  the  tailor  and 
the  carpenter  shared  the  home  of  the  master 
workman.  The  more  recent  attempt  to  pay 
employees  in  part  in  orders  for  household 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    111 

supplies  on  an  establishment  kept  by  the 
head  of  a  factory  or  a  mill  has  met  with  the 
most  bitter  protest.  The  truck  system  of 
payment  in  general  industry  is  antiquated 
and  disadvantageous  to  both  parties  of  the 
labor  contract.  But  in  the  household  it  is 
accepted  as  one  of  the  foreordained  pro- 
visions of  the  household,  and  meets  with 
neither  protest  nor  objection. 

That  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  substi- 
tuting another  method  of  payment  are  very 
great  must  be  accepted  by  all,  but  to  say 
that  it  is  impossible  to  bring  about  a  change 
before  any  attempt  has  been  made  is  idle. 
Wherever  negroes  are  employed  the  custom 
is  almost  universal  for  them  to  live  in  their 
own  homes.  In  many  families  the  experi- 
ment among  white  employees  has  been 
made  successfully.  It  has  been  made  on 
a  somewhat  extensive  scale  at  the  hotel  at 
Saranac  Inn,  New  York,  where  the  em- 
ployees lodge  in  a  large  house  fitted  up 
attractively  with  a  dining-room  that  is  used 
for  dancing,  while  a  billiard-room  and 


112       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

smoking-room  are  provided  for  the  married 
men  who  board  in  the  house  with  their 
wives.  So  far  these  experiments  are  only 
variations  of  the  truck  system;  the  negro 
employees  sleep  at  home,  but  have  their 
meals  in  the  families  of  their  employers; 
in  Saranac  Inn  the  boarding-house  for 
employees  is  owned  and  managed  by  the 
proprietor  of  the  hotel.  But  they  are 
illustrations  of  the  fact  that  in  limited  areas 
it  has  been  found  possible  to  take  the  em- 
ployee out  of  the  house  of  the  employer  as 
far  as  lodging  is  concerned.  To  accomplish 
this  must  be  the  first  step  toward  any  modi- 
fication of  the  truck  system.  Fifty  years  ago 
the  teacher  who  "boarded  'round"  prob- 
ably looked  on  the  truck  system  as  an  inev- 
itable accompaniment  of  the  occupation. 
Teaching  is  being  raised  from  an  occupa- 
tion to  a  profession  and  one  of  the  elements 
in  the  change  is  the  fact  that  wages  have 
been  put  on  a  different  plane. 

Another  economic  difficulty  that  some 
persons  have  found  lies  in  the  fact  that,  as 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    113 

has  been  said,  the  substitution  of  contract 
for  status  is  at  once  the  object  and  the 
method  of  modern  civilization,  and  that 
domestic  service  owes  nearly  all  of  its  diffi- 
culties to  the  fact  that  it  is  based  on  status. 
The  reason  why  it  has  not  been  transferred 
to  contract  is  because  it  is  part  of  family 
life  and  no  one  has  as  yet  shown  how  the 
family  can  be  preserved  as  an  institution  if 
its  members  rest  their  relations  on  contract 
and  not  on  status. 

This  may  be  true  if  the  domestic  em- 
ployee is  to  be  considered  a  part  of  the 
family.  Yet  just  here  is  the  anomaly  and 
the  fallacy  of  the  objection.  The  domestic 
employee  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  a  part  of 
the  family;  she  never  in  all  her  history  has 
had  more  than  a  semblance  of  such  a  rela- 
tionship and  even  that  semblance  has  long 
since  disappeared.  The  presence  of  the 
domestic  employee  in  the  family  is  not  es- 
sential to  the  existence  of  the  family;  the 
domestic  employee  comes  and  goes,  but  the 
family  remains.  More  than  this,  it  must  be 


114       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

said  that  the  presence  of  the  domestic  em- 
ployee does  something  to  destroy  the  integ- 
rity of  the  family  life.  Family  life  presup- 
poses the  existence  of  congenial  tastes  and 
sympathetic  relationships.  It  argues  no- 
thing against  domestic  service  as  an  occu- 
pation that  those  engaged  in  it  are  rarely 
those  who  would  be  chosen  as  life  compan- 
ions or  even  as  temporary  companions  by 
those  with  whom  the  accident  of  occupation 
has  thrown  them. 

Yet  more  than  this  must  be  said.  The 
statement  that  family  life  cannot  be  pre- 
served if  its  members  rest  their  relations  on 
contract  ignores  the  fact  that  the  tendency 
in  family  life  is  precisely  in  this  direction. 
The  wife  has  her  allowance,  sons  and  daugh- 
ters are  given  their  allowances,  financial 
dealings  between  members  of  the  same 
family  are  becoming  more  definite  and 
even  legal  in  their  character,  and  the  re- 
sult is  not  the  disintegration  of  the  fam- 
ily as  it  passes  from  status  to  contract, 
but  a  greater  freedom  of  the  individual 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE  115 

members  and  therefore  a  more  complex 
and  perfect  organization  of  the  family  rela- 
tionships. 

Another  economic  difficulty  lies  in  the 
fact  that  so  much  of  the  service  is  largely 
personal  in  character,  and  that,  therefore, 
payments  are  regulated  by  personal  feelings 
and  not  by  a  recognized  standard  of  pay- 
ment. The  result  of  this  is  the  obnoxious 
system  of  fees  —  a  system  difficult  to  be 
done  away  with  as  long  as  employees  ex- 
pect to  receive  them.  Fees  could  be  abol- 
ished by  the  action  of  the  employers,  but  as 
long  as  they  prefer  to  have  their  employees 
paid  by  other  persons  —  a  practice  that 
would  be  tolerated  by  no  other  class  of  em- 
ployers —  the  initiative  will  not  come  from 
them.  Fees  could  be  abolished  by  the  action 
of  the  individuals  disposed  to  give  them, 
but  so  long  as  men  selfishly  believe  that 
money  ought  to  purchase  privileges  that  are 
not  rights,  the  initiative  will  not  come  from 
them.  Fees  could  be  abolished  by  the  con- 
certed action  of  employees,  but  so  long  as 


116       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

they  are  ignorant  of  economic  principles 
and  indifferent  to  the  social  results  of  the 
system,  the  initiative  will  not  come  from 
them.  But  one  of  the  hopeful  signs  of  the 
times  is  the  recent  statement  that  in  Paris 
waiters  are  coming  to  appreciate  the  fact 
that  fees  ultimately  must  mean  smaller 
wages,  since  employers  not  only  refuse  to 
pay  their  employees  but  demand  a  certain 
percentage  of  the  fees  received.  The  move- 
ment among  the  waiters  to  refuse  fees  and 
to  insist  on  wages  paid  by  employers  is  full 
of  promise. 

What,  then,  are  the  conditions  under 
which  improvement  in  domestic  service  is 
possible  ? 

First  of  all  must  come  that  attitude  of 
mind  that  is  willing  to  recognize  not  only 
the  impossibility  of  separating  domestic 
service  from  other  parts  of  the  household 
life,  but  still  more  the  impossibility  of  sep- 
arating the  economic  conditions  within  the 
household  from  the  economic  conditions 
without,  a  willingness  to  give  up  a  priori 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    117 

reasoning  in  regard  to  domestic  employ- 
ments and  to  study  the  historical  and  eco- 
nomic development  of  the  household.  All 
superficial  treatment  of  the  question  must 
fail  of  securing  the  desired  results,  and  all 
treatment  must  be  superficial  that  does  not 
rest  on  the  solid  basis  of  economic  history 
and  theory. 

Granted,  then,  the  existence  of  economic 
conditions  in  the  household,  the  method  of 
procedure  is  the  same  as  in  all  other  fields 
of  action.  In  medicine  the  first  step  is  to 
diagnose  the  case ;  in  law,  to  take  evidence ; 
in  mathematics,  to  state  the  problem;  in 
science,  to  marshal  the  facts.  No  set  of  a 
priori  principles  can  be  assumed  in  the 
household  with  the  expectation  that  the 
household  will  conform  to  them.  Inves- 
tigation to-day  stands  at  the  door  of  every 
entrance  into  a  new  field  and  bars  the  way 
to  any  attempt  to  force  a  passage  without 
its  aid.  The  household  has  been  slow  to 
accept  the  inexorable  fact  that  it  must 
demolish  its  Chinese  wall  of  exclusion  and 


118       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

throw  open  its  facts  to  investigation,  but 
this  is  the  inevitable  end. 

Next  to  the  household,  the  most  conserv- 
ative element  in  society  is  the  school.  Yet 
the  school  is  already  yielding  to  the  spirit 
of  the  times.  It  has  been  pointed  out  in  a 
recent  number  of  the  "Atlantic  Monthly" l 
that  the  profession  of  teaching,  starting 
with  a  definite  and  final  code  of  principles 
of  education,  has  clung  tenaciously  to  it,  and 
it  is  but  to-day  that  the  occupation  is  real- 
izing that  it  can  make  progress  only  as 
progress  is  made  in  other  fields,  and  that 
is  through  scientific  investigation;  only  to- 
day is  it  coming  to  appreciate  that  all  con- 
clusions to  be  valid  must  be  based  on  facts. 
Every  occupation  has  passed  through  the 
same  experience  and  the  law  of  progress 
that  governs  all  development  will  work 
itself  out  in  the  household.  Minds  open  to 
conviction  and  trained  to  scientific  investi- 
gation are  the  prerequisites  for  an  improved 
condition  in  domestic  service. 

1  Frederic  Burk,  The  Training  of  Teachers,  October,  1897. 


ECONOMICS  AND  ETHICS  IN  SERVICE    119 

Is  it  said  that  this  discussion  of  the  sub- 
ject has  dealt  only  with  its  economic  phases 
and  has  ignored  the  ethical  side?  Alas, 
life  is  everywhere  one  long  protest  against 
a  varying  standard  of  ethics.  Shall  we 
separate  the  ethics  of  household  service 
from  the  ethics  of  the  shop,  the  ethics  of 
the  factory,  the  ethics  of  the  professions? 
Shall  we  be  governed  by  one  code  in  the 
family,  by  another  code  in  the  church,  by 
a  third  code  in  the  school,  and  a  fourth  code 
in  the  state  ?  Is  the  subject  of  ethics  to  be 
divided  and  pigeon-holed  in  compartments 
labeled  "ethics  for  domestic  service," 
"ethics  for  skilled  labor,"  "ethics  for  un- 
skilled labor,"  "ethics  for  employers,"  and 
"ethics  for  employees?"  Who  shall  sep- 
arate any  question  in  economics,  nay  more, 
any  question  in  life  from  its  ethical  phases  ? 
Who  shall  declare  that  the  ethical  code  for 
one  is  not  the  ethical  code  for  all  ? 

It  is  said  that  every  book  is  but  the  elab- 
oration of  a  single  idea.  In  a  similar  way 
all  discussion  of  domestic  service  must  have 


120       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

its  beginning  and  its  end  with  the  idea  that 
no  improvement  is  possible  that  is  not 
inaugurated  by  that  class  in  society  that 
sees  most  clearly  the  economic  as  well  as 
the  ethical  elements  involved  in  it,  and  that 
work  by  the  slow  methods  of  careful,  patient 
investigation  is  the  only  way  by  which  its 
difficulties,  all  too  evident,  may  be  lessened, 
not  for  ourselves  but  for  those  who  shall 
come  after  us. 


"PUT  YOURSELF  IN  HIS  PLACE 


'TUT  YOURSELF  IN  HIS  PLACE" 

To  seek  wisdom  through  a  questionnaire  is 
a  time-honored  expedient,  while  to  give 
wisdom  through  questions  has  classic  au- 
thority. It  is  therefore  immaterial  whether 
it  is  Experience  or  Inexperience  that  may  be 
either  seeking  wisdom  or  that  may  have 
wisdom  to  bestow  in  this  interlocution  con- 
cerning a  domestic  problem  that  has  already 
been  involved  to  the  nth  power. 

What  are  the  causes  of  our  household 
troubles  ? 

The  causes  are  in  part  economic  —  a 
household  system  governed  by  the  same 
economic  laws  that  govern  other  indus- 
tries, but  resisting  the  action  of  these  laws; 
in  part  social  —  the  attempt  to  form  a 
chemical  compound  of  public  and  political 
democracy  with  private  and  social  aristo- 
cracy; in  part  educational — the  tradition 
that  marriage  acts  as  a  solvent  to  change 


124       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

every  ignorant,  inexperienced  young  woman 
into  an  accomplished  housekeeper,  and 
that,  therefore,  mental  training  is  for  her  a 
work  of  supererogation;  in  part  religious  — 
the  persistent  maintenance  of  the  belief  that 
from  the  primeval  chaos  every  woman  has 
been  foreordained  to  be  a  housekeeper, 
united  with  the  rejection  of  the  parallel 
belief  that  every  man  has  been  foreordained 
to  be  a  tiller  of  the  soil. 

But  the  situation  in  regard  to  household 
help  has  never  been  so  critical  as  it  is  at  the 
present  time. 

This  statement  has  been  found  in  one 
form  or  another  in  all  literature,  sacred  and 
profane,  from  the  times  of  Abraham  and 
Achilles  to  the  story  of  the  last  college 
graduate  who  has  entered  domestic  service 
in  disguise. 

Other  countries  do  not  have  .the  same 
difficulty. 

On  the  contrary,  the  difficulty  is  uni- 
versal. It  may  vary  somewhat  in  degree, 
but  fundamentally  the  problem  is  the  same 


"PUT  YOURSELF  IN  HIS  PLACE"       125 

the  world  over.  Moreover,  in  no  country  is 
there  so  intelligent  an  understanding  of  all 
its  factors  as  in  America,  for  in  no  other 
country  is  found  so  great  a  mass  of  material 
for  a  comprehensive  study  of  the  subject. 
Statistical  investigations  have  been  carried 
on  through  national,  state,  and  private 
initiative,  and  the  information  asked  for 
has,  for  the  most  part,  been  cheerfully 
given  because  of  the  widespread  desire 
among  household  employers  to  cooper- 
ate in  every  way  with  those  undertaking 
these  investigations.  Material  of  every 
kind,  ranging  from  the  scientific  accumu- 
lations of  bureaus  of  labor  to  the  hyster- 
ical deductions  of  sentimental  observers, 
is  all  at  hand.  In  Berlin  a  young  man  who 
recently  carried  on  a  statistical  inquiry  in 
regard  to  domestic  service  was  nearly 
mobbed  for  his  presumption  —  so  con- 
sidered —  in  attempting  to  gather  informa- 
tion that  German  housekeepers  had 
guarded  as  sacredly  as  Tibet  holds  the 
Grand  Lama. 


126       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

When  will  our  present  household  difficulty 
end? 

The  difficulty  will  end  when  every  man  is 
reasonable,  when  every  woman  is  omni- 
scient, when  every  child  is  obedient,  when 
we  discover  the  philosopher's  stone,  when 
we  drink  of  the  Pierian  spring,  when  we  dig 
the  treasure  at  the  end  of  the  rainbow, 
when  we  enter  upon  our  inheritance  in 
Spain,  when  the  east  meets  the  west. 

Meantime  ? 

Dismiss  the  cook  from  your  attention  for 
a  moment  and  study  the  kitchen.  Is  the 
baking-table  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
room  from  the  baking-utensils,  while  the 
baking-materials  are  kept  in  the  pantry? 
Does  an  inventory  of  the  cooking-imple- 
ments show  one  article  for  toasting  and 
broiling,  two  battered  saucepans  for  prepar- 
ing a  five-course  dinner,  and  a  soup-kettle 
with  a  cover  that  does  not  fit?  Is  the 
pump  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  sink  ?  Is 
the  sink  three  inches  too  low  and  in  a  dark 
corner  where  a  blank  wall  is  all  that  meets 


"PUT  YOURSELF  IN  HIS  PLACE"      127 

the  eye  of  the  one  who  works  before  it? 
Does  the  waste-pipe  from  the  ice-chest  lead 
into  a  pan  that  must  be  emptied  daily? 
Must  the  ashes  from  the  range  be  carried 
out  of  doors  every  day  ?  Is  the  range-coal 
too  large  and  is  the  kindling-wood  green? 
Does  the  oven-door  refuse  to  shut  tight  and 
has  the  tea-kettle  sprung  a  leak?  Do  the 
unprotected  water-pipes  freeze  with  zero 
weather  ?  Does  the  chimney  fail  to  draw  ? 
The  results  of  these  investigations  may  be 
the  discovery  that  the  household  engineer 
has  been  expected  to  run  his  engine  with 
insufficient  fuel.  What  if  the  skillful  en- 
gineer has  made  the  same  discovery? 

Occupy  for  a  week  in  winter  the  room  of 
the  cook.  Does  the  temperature  hover  near 
the  freezing-point,  while  the  rest  of  the 
house  is  warm?  Is  the  mattress  of  husks 
and  are  the  pillows  of  hen's  feathers  ?  Does 
a  row  of  hooks  take  the  place  of  a  closet  ? 
Try  the  room  for  a  week  in  midsummer. 
Is  the  temperature  stifling  hot  ?  Do  flies 
and  mosquitoes  find  joy  in  the  screenless 


128       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

windows  ?  Are  the  facilities  for  bathing  a 
small  bowl  and  a  pitcher  without  a  handle 
on  the  top  of  a  triangular  wash-stand  ?  The 
two  weeks'  vacation  in  an  unknown  part  of 
your  own  home  may  lead  to  the  traditional 
mauvais  quart  d'heure.  What  if  the  em- 
ployee has  spent  a  year  under  the  protecting 
shelter  of  your  roof  ? 

Watch  for  a  week  the  table  conversation 
of  your  family  and  its  guests.  Count  the 
number  of  times  you  hear  the  word 
"servant,"  and  remarks  in  regard  to 
"household  drudgery,"  "menial  service," 
"knowing  one's  place,"  and  "superiority 
to  housework."  What  if  the  household 
employee  has  also  kept  count  ? 

Imagine  that  you  can  accept  ten  cents 
from  a  friend  for  doing  an  errand,  half  a 
dollar  from  a  guest  as  he  leaves  the  house 
and  a  dollar  from  another,  and  can  flatter 
an  unwelcome  cousin  in  the  hope  of  getting 
two  dollars  at  his  departure.  Criticise 
mercilessly  all  of  your  friends  after  you 
have  invited  them  to  afternoon  tea.  Repeat 


"PUT  YOURSELF  IN  HIS  PLACE"       129 

at  table  all  the  gossip  retailed  by  officious 
busy-bodies.  Your  own  self-respect  will  be 
lowered.  What  if  moral  deterioration  takes 
place  in  the  kitchen  under  the  same  condi- 
tions ? 

But  what  can  I  do  ? 

Try  putting  all  the  laundry-work  out  of 
the  house;  take  up  the  carpets,  paint  the 
floors,  put  down  rugs  and  send  these  out 
of  the  house  to  be  cleaned,  or  clean  house 
with  a  vacuum  cleaning-machine ;  reduce 
useless  work  and  incidentally  add  to  the 
attractiveness  of  your  house  by  taking  down 
portieres  and  paying  storage  on  half  of  the 
bric-a-brac ;  buy  ice-cream  and  cake  and  all 
"extras"  at  the  woman's  exchange.  These 
additional  expenses  will  materially  reduce 
your  subscriptions  to  half-orphan  asylums 
and  to  vacation  funds  for  the  indigent. 
What  if  this  course  saves  you  from  hotel 
existence  and  enables  others  to  keep  their 
homes  intact  and  to  pay  for  their  own  vaca- 
tions ? 

Substitute   praise  for  constant   censure 


130       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

and  the  principle  of  cooperation  for  that 
of  "giving  orders;"  see  that  the  daily  paper 
is  on  the  kitchen-table  before  it  is  a  week 
old  and  that  the  magazines  are  promptly 
supplied;  encourage  the  singing-class,  the 
flower-bed,  basket-making,  bead-work,  in- 
door evening  games,  and  out-of-doors 
recreation;  at  least  make  the  effort  to  give 
in  some  form  a  new  and  wholesome  inter- 
est to  lives  that  may  have  been  repressed 
and  mentally  starved.  Friends  may  smile 
and  call  the  plan  quixotic.  What  if  it 
encourages  self-respect  in  the  employee  and 
therefore  respect  for  his  work  ? 

Consider  the  kitchen  with  its  accompany- 
ing rooms  in  the  light  of  an  economic  plant. 
Give  the  same  careful  attention  to  its  ar- 
rangement and  equipment  that  the  owner 
of  a  manufacturing  establishment  gives  to 
the  fitting-up  of  a  new  factory  with  all  the 
latest  labor-saving  contrivances  and  facil- 
ities for  work;  study  the  plumbing  and  the 
water-supply  with  the  zest  of  a  scientific 
investigator  and  select  the  cooking-  and 


"PUT  YOURSELF  IN  HIS  PLACE"      131 

baking-utensils  with  the  interest  of  an  artist. 
This  course  may  curtail  expenditures  for 
the  "den"  and  the  relinquishment  of  the 
"cosy  corner."  What  if  thereby  your  house 
and  home  gain  in  unity  for  employer  as  well 
as  for  employee  ? 

Abandon  the  attempt  to  maintain  a 
Waldorf-Astoria  style  of  living  on  a  fif- 
teen-hundred-dollar salary  ;  abandon  it, 
if  you  have  the  income  to  maintain  it,  if 
in  maintaining  it  you  are  putting  tempta- 
tion in  the  path  of  a  weaker  friend  and 
neighbor.  This  may  reduce  your  calling- 
list  by  two  hundred  names.  What  if  you 
gain  thereby  peace  of  mind  and  a  contented 
household  ? 

Establish  household  settlements  among 
the  cottagers  at  Newport,  in  the  vicinity  of 
Central  Park,  on  Riverside  Drive,  Com- 
monwealth Avenue,  Euclid  Avenue,  and 
the  North  Shore  Drive.  What  if  successful 
settlement  work  in  these  localities  should 
enable  the  families  of  millionaires  to  bridge 
the  impassable  chasm  that  now  separates  the 


132       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

dining-room  from  the  butler's  pantry  and  the 
reception-room  from  the  linen-closet  ? 

Will  these  temporary  devices  remove  all 
friction  in  the  running  of  my  household 
machinery  ? 

No,  they  will  probably  not  even  lessen 
it.  But  these  and  similar  expedients  may 
be  of  benefit  to  you,  inasmuch  as  they  may 
help  you  to  carry  out  the  commendable  ad- 
vice of  Charles  Reade,  "Put  yourself  in 
his  place."  They  may  also  be  of  benefit 
to  your  granddaughter  in  enabling  her  to 
be  a  member  of  that  ideal  trades-union 
—  that  between  employer  and  employee. 


OUR  KITCHEN 


OUR   KITCHEN 

OUR  kitchen  is  not  that  of  a  millionaire; 
it  has  not  a  tiled  floor,  enameled  brick  walls 
or  glass  shelves;  it  is  not  fitted  with  appli- 
ances for  cooking  by  electricity  or  with 
automatic  arrangements  for  bringing  up 
coal  and  sending  down  ashes.  It  is  a  plain, 
ordinary  kitchen,  built  new  six  years  ago, 
and  attached  to  an  old  house  to  take  the 
place  of  the  former  basement  kitchen.  It 
was  planned  by  the  landlord  and  the  car- 
penter for  unknown  tenants,  and  the  gen- 
eral arrangement  had  to  conform  to  the 
plan  of  a  house  built  many  years  before. 
If,  then,  it  has  been  possible,  with  these 
usual,  every-day  conditions  to  develop  a 
kitchen  that  possesses  convenience  of  ar- 
rangement and  unity  of  purpose,  it  would 
seem  that  similar  ends  might  be  obtained 
in  any  kitchen,  anywhere,  by  any  person, 


136      PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

through  use  of  the  same  means,  —  careful 
thought. 

We  are  busy  women  who  have  learned, 
in  other  lines  of  work  outside  the  household, 
the  value  of  order  and  system,  and  when 
we  began  housekeeping  we  saw  no  reason 
why  the  application  to  the  kitchen  of  the 
same  principles  that  were  used  in  arranging 
a  study  or  a  library  should  not  produce  the 
same  ease  and  joy  in  the  work  of  the  house- 
hold. If  a  library,  to  be  of  service  to  those 
who  work  in  it,  must  have  its  books  classi- 
fied according  to  some  clearly  recognized 
principle,  would  not  a  kitchen  gain  in  use- 
fulness if  some  principles  of  classifying  its 
utensils  were  employed?  If  a  study-table 
demands  every  convenience  for  work, 
ought  not  a  kitchen-table  to  be  equally  well 
equipped?  If  the  student  can  work  more 
effectively  in  a.  cool  room  than  in  one  that 
is  stifling  hot,  will  not  a  cook  produce  better 
results  if  working  in  a  well-ventilated 
room  ?  If  the  librarian  needs  special  equip- 
ment, does  not  the  butler  need  appliances 


OUR  KITCHEN  137 

adapted  for  his  work?  If  the  instructor 
needs  the  materials  for  investigation  if  his 
work  is  not  to  perish  of  dry  rot,  should  not 
the  houseworker  have  at  hand  all  the 
materials  needed  if  her  work  is  to  represent 
progress  ?  If  the  parlor  gains  in  attractive- 
ness if  its  colors  are  harmonious,  will  not  the 
kitchen  gain  if  thought  is  given  to  appro- 
priate decoration  ? 

It  was  the  affirmative  answer  to  these  and 
similar  questions  that  led  to  the  evolution  of 
our  kitchen  from  a  state  of  unadorned  new- 
ness to  its  present  condition.  An  indulgent 
landlord  provided  a  model  range,  a  copper 
boiler,  a  porcelain-lined  sink,  and  a  double 
shelf;  we  have  added  the  gas-stove,  the 
instantaneous  water-heater,  the  electric 
fan,  two  double  shelves  and  all  the  utensils. 
Thus  equipped,  what  does  our  kitchen  re- 
present ? 

To  answer  this  question  it  is  necessary 
to  consider  its  general  arrangement.  The 
north  side  is  filled  by  a  window,  the  range, 
and  the  outside  door.  This  with  the  ad- 


138       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

jacent  east  side,  we  call  "the  cooking  side." 
Here  are  arranged  boilers,  sauce-pans, 
broilers,  and  all  implements  large  or  small 
needed  for  cooking. 

The  south  side  is  filled  by  the  door  lead- 
ing into  the  refrigerator-closet,  the  baking- 
table,  and  the  door  leading  into  the  butler's 
pantry.  This  we  call  the  "baking  side," 
for  here  is  the  baking-table  with  its  bins  for 
flour  and  meal,  its  drawers  for  baking- 
spoons,  knives  and  forks,  and  sliding  shelves 
for  baking  and  for  bread-cutting.  Above  it 
are  various  small  utensils  needed  in  baking, 
together  with  spices,  essences,  and  various 
condiments.  A  "  kitchen  indicator  "  show- 
ing articles  needed  from  the  grocer's  hangs 
at  the  left  of  the  shelf,  a  peg  at  the  end 
holds  the  household  bills,  and  pegs  at  the 
right  are  for  shears,  scissors,  a  pin-cushion, 
and  a  cushion  for  needles  used  in  preparing 
roasts. 

The  west  side  is  the  "cleaning  side." 
This  side  is  our  special  pride  and  delight, 
for  here  on  a  corner  shelf  is  our  electric  fan, 


OUR  KITCHEN  139 

the  drop-leaf  table  for  drying  dishes,  the  por- 
celain sink  with  its  shining  brass  faucets,  the 
nickel  instantaneous  water-heater,  and  our 
fine  forty-gallon  copper  boiler.  Here  above 
the  sink  are  collected  the  cleaning-brushes 
of  various  kinds,  ammonia,  borax,  scouring- 
sand,  and  all  cleaning  preparations.  The 
sink  is  set  about  three  inches  too  low  for 
comfortable  use,  a  fault  in  sinks  almost 
universal,  and  to  remedy  this  defect  a  rack 
was  evolved  from  four  nickel  towel-bars 
joined  by  connecting  metal  plates.  Lack 
of  wall  space  required  that  the  shelf  on  this 
side  of  the  room  should  be  shared  equally 
between  the  preparations  for  cleaning  and 
the  kitchen  library,  while  the  basket  for 
newspapers  and  magazines  occupies  the 
end  of  the  cleaning-table.  But  does  not 
cleanliness  of  mind  accompany  cleanliness 
of  material  equipment  ? 

The  outside  entry  to  the  kitchen  serves, 
in  default  of  other  place,  as  a  cleaning- 
closet.  Here  are  kept  brooms,  dusters, 
scrubbing-brushes,  polishing-brushes,  dust- 


140       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

ing-mops  and  cleaning-mops.  Here  also, 
easy  of  access,  is  kept  the  garbage-pail, — 
three  times  each  week  emptied  by  the  city 
garbage  collector  and  three  times  each 
week  scrubbed  with  hot  soap-suds. 

This  is  our  kitchen  as  regards  its  ground 
plan  and  its  exterior  aspect.  But  the  stu- 
dent of  history  always  looks  behind  the 
external  surface  and  studies  the  record; 
hence  our  kitchen  records  a  belief  in  a  few 
principles  that  seem  fundamental  in  a 
household. 

The  first  principle  is  that  a  kitchen  should 
be  absolutely  sanitary  in  all  its  appoint- 
ments. This  means  not  only  filtered  cistern 
water,  a  still  for  distilling  water,  a  porcelain- 
lined  sink,  and  an  abundance  of  hot  water, 
but  it  means  an  absence  of  cubby-holes  and 
cupboards  where  articles  may  be  tucked 
away  and  accumulate  dirt.  Everything  is 
in  the  open,  every  part  of  the  kitchen  is  kept 
spotlessly  clean,  and  we  have  never  seen 
a  rat  or  a  water-bug  about  the  house. 

A  second  belief  recorded  by  our  kitchen 


OUR  KITCHEN  141 

is  that  of  unity  of  plan.  If  the  artist  places 
before  all  else  in  importance  the  composi- 
tion of  his  picture,  if  the  author  believes 
that  his  book  should  be  the  elaboration  of  a 
single  idea,  if  the  engineer  knows  that  every 
part  of  his  engine  fits  by  design  into  every 
other  part,  it  would  seem  clear  that  the 
application  of  the  same  principle  is  essential 
in  the  household.  If  the  kitchen  is  to  sus- 
tain an  organic  relationship  to  the  other 
parts  of  the  house  it  must  represent  in  the 
arrangement  of  all  its  details  the  same  idea 
of  unity  of  composition  that  is  expressed  in 
a  painting,  of  unity  of  development  that 
gives  life  to  a  book,  of  unity  of  design  that 
makes  the  perfect  engine. 

A  third  idea  represented  in  our  kitchen  is 
that  it  must  be  equipped  with  every  labor- 
saving  device  and  with  every  convenience 
for  work,  if  satisfactory  results  are  to  be 
secured.  The  first  thought  of  the  manufac- 
turer is  for  the  equipment  of  his  manufac- 
turing plant  with  every  modern  appliance. 
Can  a  perfect  product  come  from  imperfect, 


142       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

inadequate  means  of  work  in  the  household  ? 
The  application  of  this  principle  has  of 
necessity  involved  many  experiments, —  in- 
ventions will  not  work,  or  good  ones  are 
superseded  by  better  ones,  or  a  new  need 
arises  and  must  be  met.  Every  week  sees 
some  article  discarded  because  an  improve- 
ment on  it  has  been  found.  In  the  city  of 
twenty-two  thousand  inhabitants  in  which 
we  live  automobiles  have  been  used  six 
years  and  approximately  three  hundred  are 
now  owned  there  and  in  the  vicinity,  but 
not  one  can  be  found  of  a  pattern  prior  to 
that  of  three  years  ago.  If  an  automobile 
must  be  disposed  of  because  it  is  not  of  the 
most  recent  model,  does  it  seem  unreason- 
able to  cast  aside  a  twenty-five  cent  egg- 
beater  that  chafes  the  hands,  a  pineapple- 
snipper  that  wastes  the  fruit,  an  unsightly 
broken  sauce-pan,  and  a  patent  water- 
cooler  that  will  not  cool  the  water  ? 

But  man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone, 
and  a  kitchen  may  be  sanitary  in  all  its 
arrangements,  it  may  represent  unity  of 


OUR  KITCHEN  143 

plan,  it  may  have  every  modern  conven- 
ience, and  yet  it  may  lack  the  essential  of 
attractiveness.  The  arts  and  crafts  move- 
ment has  not  yet  reached  the  kitchen,  and 
it  is  thus  almost  impossible  to  secure  cook- 
ing-utensils of  good  artistic  design  and 
color.  But  the  second-hand  store  will  often 
furnish  a  piece  of  good  pottery,  brass,  or 
copper  that  may  be  utilized  in  the  kitchen 
and  serve  the  added  purpose  of  increasing 
its  attractiveness. 

Yet  a  kitchen  may  illustrate  all  of  these 
principles  and  still  lack  those  subtle  fea- 
tures that  establish,  unconsciously,  some 
connection  between  it  and  its  predecessors 
in  other  times  and  in  other  places.  If  the 
theory  of  evolution  has  taught  us  not  only 
in  science  but  in  art  and  in  politics  and  in 
everything  connected  with  our  daily  life  to 
look  behind  the  surface  and  to  seek  the 
origins  of  things,  if  it  has  taught  us  ever 
to  look  for  the  relationship  between  the 
present  and  the  past,  surely  the  kitchen 
must  not  be  excluded  from  this  process  of 


144       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

thought.  Apparently  the  work  performed 
there  each  day  has  neither  connection  with 
the  past  nor  outlook  into  the  future,  yet  this 
is  but  a  superficial  aspect  of  the  situation. 
The  kitchen  of  to-day  with  gas-range  and 
instantaneous  water-heater  is  the  direct 
heir  of  the  kitchen  of  yesterday  with  coal- 
range  and  copper  boiler,  and  of  that  of  the 
day-before-yesterday,  with  open  fire  and 
cauldron.  An  attempt  to  maintain  this  con- 
nection with  the  past  is  sought  through  the 
photographs  on  the  walls.  Two  views  of 
early  colonial  kitchens  give  historic  continu- 
ity with  the  past,  a  photograph  of  the  inter- 
ior of  a  Dutch  kitchen  gives  a  touch  of  that 
cosmopolitanism  that  makes  the  whole 
world  akin,  while  that  of  a  famous  hotel  in 
New  York  City  places  us  by  prophetic 
fiction  in  the  class  of  millionaires. 

Such  is  our  kitchen.     "Does  it  pay?" 
It  has  paid  us. 


AN  ILLUSTRATED  EDITION 


AN  ILLUSTRATED  EDITION 

IT  is  the  day  of  the  illustrated  edition,  and 
even  more  the  day  of  the  illustrator.  Happy 
is  the  author  to  whom  is  accorded  the  honor 
of  an  illustrated  edition  of  his  latest  book. 
Still  happier  is  he  whose  facile,  practiced 
pen  is  called  into  requisition  to  illustrate 
the  works  of  the  great  artists  found  in  our 
monthly  magazines.  Unhappy  is  the  one 
whose  book  no  artist,  even  if  gifted  with 
imagination,  can  illustrate,  and  whose  name 
no  publishing  house  has  ever  entered  on  its 
card  catalogue  of  pen  illustrators  of  artis- 
tic sketches.  But  more  fortunate  times 
may  await  the  unillustratable  and  non- 
illustrating  author.  A  changing  phrase- 
ology reflects  a  new  rapprochement  between 
author  and  artist  and  a  breaking-down  of 
the  barriers  that  once  confined  each  within 
definite  limits.  There  are  even  indications 
that  the  present  positions  of  author  and 


148       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

artist  may  be  reversed  and  that  the  non- 
illustrating  author  may  become  quite  inde- 
pendent of  the  previously  necessary  artist. 
"Pen  pictures,"  "sketches  in  black  and 
white,"  "pastels  in  prose,"  all  indicate  the 
possibilities  open  to  the  author  of  combin- 
ing with  his  own  vocation  that  of  the  artist 
whose  existence  thus  becomes  unnecessary 
to  his  own.  Nay  more,  the  unillustratable 
author  may  take  heart,  for  as  the  skillful 
acrobat  learns  the  feat  of  walking  on  his 
hands,  so  the  literary  trickster  may  achieve 
the  paradox  of  illustrating  works  that  can- 
not be  illustrated. 

This  theory  has  been  the  result  of  con- 
templating on  the  one  hand  the  impossibil- 
ity of  illustrating  a  modest  book  dealing 
with  statistics  and  equally  prosaic  facts  and 
of  noting  on  the  other  hand  the  popular 
demand  that  every  book  shall  be  illustrated. 
How  shall  man  attain  unto  the  unattainable  ? 

A  reminiscent  mood  led  the  author  to 
blow  the  dust  from  the  top  of  her  last  book, 
written  ten  years  ago  and  not  yet,  unhappily, 


AN  ILLUSTRATED  EDITION  149 

out  of  its  second  edition,  and  to  turn  over 
its  half -forgotten  pages.  She  found  a  pass- 
ing interest  in  recalling  her  conclusions 
as  they  were  laid  bare  on  the  pages  of  the 
book,  but  undreamed-of  pleasures  took 
form  and  shape  as  she  remembered  the 
circumstances  under  which  each  page  had 
been  written.  Nay  more,  there  opened  out 
the  vision  of  the  unattainable  illustrated 
edition.  A  series  of  pictures  passed  before 
her,  far  more  interesting  than  the  book 
they  illustrated,  and  thus  a  prosaic  work 
attained  a  place  in  that  desirable  class  in 
which  are  found  all  books  whose  text  seems 
only  as  a  pretext  for  the  artist's  brush. 

The  first  picture  was  that  of  the  receipt 
of  a  letter  written  in  reply  to  a  humble 
request  for  information  in  regard  to  the 
number  of  maids  employed  in  the  house- 
hold, the  length  of  time  they  had  been 
employed,  and  similar  facts  obvious  to 
one's  friends  and  neighbors.  The  letter 
was  written  on  Tiffany's  finest  stationery, 
it  bore  a  crest  and  a  coat  of  arms  so  unde- 


150       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

cipherable  as  to  be  a  guarantee  of  its  high 
aristocratic  lineage,  and  its  perfume  was 
that  of  Araby  the  Blest.  But  the  letter  was 
written  in  the  third  person  and  the  in- 
formation it  conveyed  was  not  that  which 
had  been  sought  but  the  unexpected  state- 
ment that  the  inquiry  was  impertinent  and 
under  no  consideration  whatever  could  be 
answered.  Alas,  the  questioner  had  known 
that  her  questions  would  demand  time  and 
thought,  but  what  artist,  save  the  author, 
could  depict  the  abyss  into  which  the  ques- 
tioner was  hurled  by  the  epithet  "imper- 
tinent?" 

The  second  picture  also  had  a  letter  in 
the  foreground.  The  quest  for  information 
had  led  to  an  appeal  to  the  only  authority 
known  to  the  questioner,  but  it  was  to  an 
authority  of  world-wide  reputation,  and  the 
unknown  questioner  hesitated  long.  Would 
the  great  man  heed  the  appeal,  even  if  the 
questioner  could  justify  herself  in  making 
it  ?  But  the  die  was  cast  and  the  result  was 
a  long,  kindly,  painstaking  letter  not  only 


AN  ILLUSTRATED  EDITION  151 

giving  in  detail  all  the  information  sought 
but  also  suggesting  similar  by-paths  to  be 
explored.  "Of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven." 

The  third  picture  was  that  of  a  woman's 
club.  The  writer  had  never  belonged  to 
a  woman's  club,  save  for  a  brief  period  of 
nominal  connection  with  one,  and  it  had 
been  with  much  trepidation  that  she  had 
accepted  an  invitation  to  read  a  paper 
before  one  of  these  organizations.  But  she 
wrote  an  article  in  which  she  attempted  to 
show  by  means  of  all  the  facts  and  argu- 
ments at  her  command  that  the  establish- 
ment of  training-schools  for  domestic  em- 
ployees would  not  and  could  not  remedy 
household  ills.  She  valiantly  read  the  paper 
and  at  the  close  of  the  hour  one  of  the 
company  thanked  her  heartily  "  for  advo- 
cating the  establishment  of  training-schools 
for  servants."  Was  it  the  woman,  or  the 
club? 

The  fourth  picture  is  of  a  large  corner 
room,  with  low  ceiling,  facing  south  and 


152       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

west.  Its  long  table  is  covered  with  papers, 
reports,  schedules,  and  census  publications, 
and  here,  from  early  morning  until  late  at 
night,  during  the  hottest  weeks  of  the  early 
summer,  the  occupant  of  the  room  attempted 
to  work  out  some  of  the  economic  laws  gov- 
erning domestic  service.  Her  fellow  occu- 
pants of  the  large  building  were  the  numer- 
ous maids  engaged  in  cleaning  it.  Their 
work  also  was  difficult,  but  morning  tea 
tided  over  the  time  between  breakfast  and 
dinner,  and  work  for  the  day  closed  at  four 
o'clock.  How  would  an  artist  portray  the 
question  that  came  each  night  —  what 
would  be  the  effect  of  an  eight-hour  day  on 
economic  investigation  ? 

The  fifth  picture  is  one  of  a  small  room 
opening  on  an  air-shaft,  in  a  New  York 
hotel.  The  occupant  had  arrived  late,  the 
hotel  was  crowded,  and  no  other  room  was 
available.  But  it  was  not  the  smallness  of 
the  room,  or  the  single  window  opening 
on  the  air-shaft  that  gave  the  occupant 
a  chill  on  a  July  night,  —  it  was  the  fold- 


AN  ILLUSTRATED  EDITION  153 

ing-bed.  Her  traveling-bag  contained  a 
new  work  on  economic  history,  having  a 
chapter  on  domestic  service,  and  turning 
on  all  the  electric  lights,  she  read  until 
daylight,  never  since  quite  sure  whether  it 
was  devotion  to  history  or  craven  fear  of 
the  deadly  folding-bed. 

The  sixth  picture  is  one  of  a  railway 
carriage  in  provincial  France.  The  Ameri- 
can traveler,  in  search  of  information,  had 
attempted  to  learn  from  her  chance  com- 
panion in  the  carriage  somewhat  of  do- 
mestic service  in  France.  Much  valuable 
information  was  politely  given,  and  then  the 
tables  were  turned.  But  the  interest  of  the 
French  lady  was  centred,  not  in  the  status 
of  domestic  service  in  America,  but  in  the 
personal  status  of  her  new  acquaintance. 
That  she  was  traveling  alone  might  be 
accepted,  though  certainly  to  be  deprecated. 
But  what  artist  shall  show  forth  the  amaze- 
ment on  the  face  of  the  French  lady  when 
she  heard  the  affirmative  answer  to  her 
question,  "  But  surely  it  is  not  possible  that 


154       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

Madame  will  find  no  one  at  the  station  to 
meet  her?" 

The  seventh  picture  is  a  series  of  dissolv- 
ing views  that  suggest  the  portrait  of  a 
lady  standing  with  her  back  to  the  onlooker 
and  gazing  at  her  own  face  reflected  in  a 
mirror  opposite.  A  few  months  after  the 
book  was  published,  its  author,  attracted 
by  the  title  of  an  article,  purchased  a  new 
review  to  while  away  a  railway  journey. 
She  read  the  article  —  and  pondered.  It 
seemed  strangely  familiar  and  soon  she 
realized  that  it  was  in  effect  one  of  the 
chapters  in  her  own  book.  It  had  not  even 
suffered  "  a  sea-change  into  something 
rich  and  strange,"  for  the  illustrations  used 
were  the  same  that  the  first  author  had 
collected  from  the  experiences  of  her  per- 
sonal friends,  and  to  every  one  she  could 
have  attached  a  name,  as  presumably  the 
second  author  could  not  do.  The  second  in 
the  series  of  dissolving  views  is  of  a  corre- 
spondence with  a  gentleman  who  had  given 
a  course  of  lectures  on  domestic  service  in 


AN  ILLUSTRATED  EDITION  155 

a  remote  city.  The  author  of  the  book  had 
expressed  a  desire  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  Gama- 
liel and  at  length  secured  the  loan  of  the 
manuscript  from  which  the  lectures  were 
given.  Probably  a  sea-change  was  not  to 
be  looked  for  in  an  interior  city,  and  the 
author  of  the  book  rejoiced  to  find  so  much 
community  of  interest  with  the  author  of 
the  lectures.  The  third  in  the  series  of 
dissolving  views  was  of  a  certain  bibliogra- 
phy. It  had  appeared  in  the  first  number 
of  a  new  report  on  household  affairs  and 
the  author  was  interested  in  it  as  a  probable 
illustration  of  thought  transference.  Here 
was  the  title  of  a  book  she  had  consulted  in 
the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  and  that  pre- 
sumably was  not  to  be  found  in  American 
libraries.  Here  was  the  title  of  a  curious 
book  she  had  picked  up  when  "bouquiner- 
ing"  on  the  Quai  Voltaire  and  had  added  to 
her  private  library.  This  was  the  title  of 
another  curious  book  found  in  a  great 
university  library, —  interesting,  but  of  little 
value.  This  was  the  line-long  title  of  a 


156       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

collection  of  technical  German  laws  found 
in  Saxony.  Here  was  the  title  of  an  old 
book  that  had  been  valued  as  a  family 
heritage,  but  of  no  special  importance  to 
any  one  else.  The  compiler  of  the  so-called 
"books  of  reference"  had  overlooked  the 
sub-title  in  the  book  —  "full  titles  of  works 
referred  to  in  the  text"  -and  had  not 
realized  that  the  use  of  the  word  "biblio- 
graphy" had  been  demanded  by  the 
exigencies  of  type.  To  recommend  for 
use  as  a  working  bibliography  a  list  of 
"full  titles  of  works  referred  to  in  the 
text,"-  -  was  it  perhaps  donning  an  even- 
ing dress  when  starting  for  the  golf-links  ? 
The  dissolving  views  have  given  the 
author  the  greatest  pleasure  of  all  the  illus- 
trations of  the  book.  There  is  a  favorite 
jest  concerning  books  that  have  been  read 
only  by  the  author  and  the  proof-reader.  It 
is  indeed  true  that  for  the  most  part  an 
author  writes  a  book  to  please  himself,  not 
to  gain  readers.  But  there  is  a  secret  joy 
if  two  birds  can  be  brought  down  with  the 


AN  ILLUSTRATED  EDITION  157 

same  stone  and  a  reader,  other  than  the 
proof-reader,  be  found.  The  purchase  of 
a  book  does  not  necessarily  imply  that 
the  book  is  read, — public  libraries  add  the 
latest  new  books,  private  libraries  are 
interested  in  first  editions,  and  authors 
buy  presentation  copies  for  their  friends. 
But  none  of  these  purchasers  guarantee 
that  the  book  purchased  will  be  read.  Was 
it  not  a  cause  for  open  rejoicing  that  not 
only  one  but  three  readers  had  been  found, 
and  more  than  that,  that  these  three  readers 
had  not  only  been  non-combatants,  but 
had  agreed  so  entirely  with  the  views  of  the 
author  ? 

The  pleasures  of  a  visit  to  Europe  are 
often  as  is  the  square  of  the  distance  from 
the  time  of  the  visit.  With  the  passage  of 
the  years,  oblivion  overtakes  the  moments 
when  we  agonized  over  the  question  whether 
the  fee  expected  by  the  guide  was  a  shilling 
or  a  pound,  and  the  hours  when  we  gazed 
at  the  fireless  grate ;  but  with  each  recurring 
year  the  realities  stand  out  with  greater 


158       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

and  growing  vividness.  Does  not  the  flight 
of  time  bring  to  us  all  the  realization  that 
the  real  work  of  our  hand  is  not  the  one 
that  can  be  bought  at  the  counter,  but  the 
unpurchasable  illustrated  edition  ? 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE ' 

FEW  persons  whose  attention  is  attracted 
by  the  modest  sign  of  the  Woman's  Ex- 
change, now  found  in  nearly  all  our  large 
cities,  realize  that  a  new  competitor  has 
appeared  in  the  industrial  market.  Few 
even  of  those  who  have  assisted  in  organ- 
izing and  carrying  on  such  exchanges 
know  that  they  have  been  instrumental  in 
introducing  a  new  factor  into  economic 
problems.  Yet  in  spite  of  unpretentious 
rooms  and  unconcern  as  to  economic  ques- 
tions, the  Woman's  Exchange  has  already 
had  an  appreciable  effect  on  economic 
conditions,  and  must  in  future  play  a  still 
more  important  part. 

1  This  article  was  first  published  in  The  Forum,  May,  1892.  It 
is  now  republished  without  alteration  from  the  original  manu- 
script. In  the  intervening  years  some  exchanges  then  existing  have 
been  abandoned,  and  new  ones  have  been  organized,  but  a  some- 
what careful  inquiry  has  disclosed  no  essential  modifications  of 
the  principles  for  which  the  Woman's  Exchange  stood  in  1892. 
The  conclusions  reached  at  that  time  therefore  remain  unchanged. 


162       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

The  history  of  these  organizations  be- 
longs, however,  to  a  history  of  philanthropic 
work  rather  than  to  that  of  economics.  The 
first  Woman's  Exchange,  the  "Ladies'  De- 
pository Association"  of  Philadelphia,  es- 
tablished in  1833,  was  founded  by  persons 
"who  labored  earnestly  to  arouse  in  the 
community  an  interest  in  the  hard  and  often 
bitter  struggle  to  which  educated,  refined 
women  are  so  frequently  exposed  when 
financial  reverses  compel  them  to  rely  upon 
their  own  exertions  for  a  support."1  In  its 
foundation  and  its  management  it  was  con- 
trolled entirely  by  philanthropic  motives;  it 
was  to  enable  women  "who  had  seen  better 
days,"  and  suffered  more  from  the  preju- 
dices of  society  in  regard  to  woman's  work 
than  from  actual  poverty,  "to  dispose  of 
their  work  without  being  exposed  to  the 
often  rough  handling  of  shopkeepers,  or  to 
the  then  mortifying  admission  of  their  fan- 
cied humiliating  condition."  The  second 

1  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of  Managers  of  the  Ladies3 
Depository  Association  for  1890. 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  163 

exchange,  the  "  New  Brunswick,  New  Jer- 
sey, Ladies'  Depository,"  founded  in  1856, 
also  was  purely  charitable  in  its  motives, 
and  it  restricted  its  privileges  to  those  who 
had  been  in  affluent  circumstances  but  were 
suddenly  forced  to  become  self-supporting. 
The  first  two  exchanges  were  the  product 
of  a  generation  in  which  charities  of  every 
kind  were  largely  regulated  by  sympathy 
alone,  and  it  was  twenty  years  before  similar 
organizations  were  formed  elsewhere.  In 
1878  the  "New  York  Woman's  Exchange" 
was  begun,  and  it  added  a  new  idea.  Its 
aim  was  "beneficence,  rather  than  charity," 
and  it  undertook  "to  train  women  unaccus- 
tomed to  work  to  compete  with  skilled 
laborers  and  those  already  trained,  and  to 
sell  the  result  of  their  industries  '?1  It  came 
at  a  time  when  the  organization  of  charities 
was  first  being  attempted,  and  the  principle 
was  being  slowly  evolved  that  the  best  way 
to  help  an  individual  is  to  help  him  to 
help  himself.  Its  aim  and  its  management 

1  Annual  Report  for  1890. 


164       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

show  the  influence  of  the  present  generation 
in  its  study  of  philanthropy  as  a  social  and 
economic  question. 

Since  1878,  the  year  which  may  be  taken 
as  the  beginning  of  the  period  of  the  Wom- 
an's Exchange,  nearly  one  hundred  ex- 
changes have  been  organized,  all,  with 
scarcely  an  exception,  growing  out  of  phil- 
anthropic motives,  but  philanthropy  gov- 
erned by  the  principles  of  the  present  day. 
The  statement  of  the  object  of  the  exchange 
presented  in  their  constitutions  and  annual 
reports  will  make  this  clear: 

"The  object  of  this  Association  shall  be  to  aid  women 
by  helping  them  to  help  themselves ;  and  in  furtherance  of 
this  design,  to  maintain  a  depot  for  a  reception  and  sale 
of  woman's  work,  or  of  articles  in  her  possession,  of  which 
she  may  wish  to  dispose,  subject  to  the  approval  of  an 
examining  committee."  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

"As  a  means  of  providing  a  way  for  industrious  and 
needy  women  to  help  themselves  without  neglecting  their 
homes  and  families,  it  is  indeed  a  charity  that  cannot  be 
too  highly  estimated  and  is  worthy  of  substantial  support." 
President's  Report,  Decatur,  Illinois,  1890. 

"The  prime  object  of  the  Woman's  Industrial  Exchange 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  165 

of  Minneapolis  is :  First  —  To  assist  women  who  must 
maintain  themselves.  Second  —  To  assist  girls  or  women 
to  pursue  a  course  of  study  as  a  means  of  support."  Fourth 
Annual  Report,  Minneapolis,  Minnesota,  1888. 

"There  are  few  charities  that  appeal  more  strongly  to 
public  sympathy  than  those  whose  aim  is  amelioration 
of  the  sufferings  of  women,  for  whom  the  struggle  of  life 
is  beset  by  a  thousand  almost  insurmountable  difficulties." 
San  Francisco,  California. 

"The  object  of  this  Association  shall  be  to  maintain  in 
the  city  of  Little  Rock,  Arkansas,  a  place  for  the  reception, 
exhibition,  and  sale  of  articles,  the  product  and  manufac- 
ture of  industrious  women,  and  to  assist  by  such  means 
as  may  be  found  efficient  to  that  end  said  women  to  turn 
to  personal  profit  their  talent  and  industry  for  earning  an 
honest  livelihood  ;  to  facilitate  a  sale  of  such  articles  as  the 
women  aforesaid  may  have  or  desire  to  dispose  of;  also 
generally  to  assist  women  in  their  efforts  to  earn  an  honest 
maintenance  by  their  own  industry,  by  and  through  such 
instrumentalities  as  the  society  may  find  conducive  to  that 
end."  Little  Rock,  Arkansas. 

"In  addition  to  the  attainment  of  the  chief  object  of  the 
exchange,  namely,  assisting  a  needy  woman  to  turn  to 
personal  profit  whatever  useful  talent  she  may  possess,  it 
is  also  of  some  moment  to  have  demonstrated  the  practica- 
bility and  possibility  of  the  work  in  other  directions." 
New  Orleans,  Louisiana,  1888. 

"The  exchange  has,  during  the  past  year,  been  mainly 


166       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

supported  by  the  exertions  and  untiring  energy  of  the 
board  of  managers.  The  ladies  in  that  way  have  demon- 
strated the  Chrisitan  charity  that  fills  the  good  woman's 
heart  when  she  is  able  to  assist  her  sister  woman." 
President's  Report,  Augusta,  Georgia,  1891. 

"The  object  of  this  society  is  to  furnish  a  depository  for 
the  reception,  exhibition,  and  sale  of  articles  made  by 
ladies  attempting  to  support  themselves."  Stamford, 
Connecticut. 

"The  Philadelphia  Exchange  for  Woman's  Work  is  an 
institution  formed  by  a  number  of  women  of  Philadelphia 
for  the  purpose  of  helping  women  to  help  themselves." 
Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania,  Circular  of  1890. 

"Among  the  number  of  charities  which  seem  to  be 
constantly  increasing  in  our  large  city,  we  must  again 
bring  to  the  notice  of  its  friends  the  Woman's  Work 
Exchange  and  Decorative  Art  Society  of  Brooklyn." 
Annual  Report,  1889. 

The  object  of  the  Woman's  Exchange  is 
thus  seen  to  be  charity,  not  charity  pure  and 
simple,  but  charity  having  a  double  end  in 
view.  The  first  and  most  important  aim  is 
the  direction  into  remunerative  channels  of 
the  work  of  "gentlewomen  suddenly  re- 
duced to  abject  penury,"  with  the  second- 
ary aim  of  encouraging  "the  principle  of 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  167 

self-help  in  the  minds  of  girls  and  women, 
who  in  the  future,  if  necessary,  will  be 
helpful  and  not  helpless  when  misfortune 
comes."  In  carrying  out  its  object,  the 
exchange  receives  under  specified  con- 
ditions all  articles  coming  under  the  three 
general  classes  of  domestic  work,  needle- 
work, and  art- work. 

The  domestic  department  includes  all 
forms  of  food  that  can  be  prepared  by  the 
consigners  in  their  own  homes  and  sold 
through  the  exchange.  These  articles  form 
a  dozen  different  classes  and  comprise  more 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  varieties.  They 
include  every  form  of  bread,  pastry,  cake, 
small  cakes,  cookies,  cold  meats,  salads, 
soups,  special  and  fancy  desserts,  preserves, 
jellies,  jams,  pickles,  sauces,  and  delicacies 
for  the  sick. 1  In  the  department  of  needle- 
work nearly  a  hundred  different  articles  are 
enumerated  by  the  different  exchanges, 
and  the  number  is  practically  without 

1  A  very  full  list  is  given  by  F.  A.  Lincoln,  Directory  of  Ex- 
cJianges  for  Woman's  Work,  pp.  24-26. 


168       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

limit,  since  it  includes  every  form  of  plain 
and  fancy  sewing.  The  art  department  is 
for  the  special  encouragement  of  decora- 
tive art,  and  its  possibilities  as  well  as 
actual  achievements  are  very  great.  These 
three  departments  are  found  in  all  the 
exchanges,  but  each  exchange,  according 
to  its  locality  and  the  consequent  needs  of 
the  community,  adds  its  own  special  line  of 
work.  A  few  receive  scientific  and  literary 
work,  others  arrange  for  cleaning  and 
mending  lace,  re-covering  furniture,  the  care 
of  fine  bric-a-brac,  writing  and  copying,  the 
preparation  of  lunches  for  travelers  and 
picnic  parties,  and  a  few  take  orders  for 
shopping.  All  the  exchanges  have  con- 
nected with  them  an  order  department, 
which  is  considered  an  especially  satisfac- 
tory and  remunerative  part  of  their  work. 

In  fulfilling  its  aim,  the  exchange  thus 
enters  as  a  competitor  into  the  industrial 
field,  though  without  consideration  on  its 
own  part  of  this  side  of  its  work;  and  it 
is  as  an  economic  factor,  rather  than  as 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  169 

a  charitable  organization,  that  it  is  con- 
sidered in  this  chapter.  The  place  it  has 
already  won  in  this  field  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  there  are  now  in  operation  about 
seventy-five  exchanges,  a  few  in  small 
places  in  thinly  settled  localities  having 
been  abandoned,  and  these  are  scattered 
through  twenty-three  states  and  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia.  A  few  of  them  are 
carried  on  by  private  enterprise,  and  make 
no  public  report,  and  several  organizations 
have  as  yet  made  no  statement  of  their 
financial  condition.  Sixty-six  of  them, 
however,  receive  work  from  nearly  sixteen 
thousand  consigners,  to  whom  they  paid 
last  year,  according  to  their  last  annual 
reports,  a  total  amount  of  more  than 
$400,000.  The  following  table  shows  the 
amount  paid  consigners  by  the  ten  largest 
Exchanges : 

New  York  Exchange  for  Woman's  Work,  $51,000 
Boston  Women's  Educational  and  Indus- 
trial Union,  34,510 
Cincinnati  Woman's  Exchange,  26,992 


170       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

San  Francisco  Woman's  Exchange,  23,372 

Baltimore  Woman's  Industrial  Exchange,  15,500 

Philadelphia  Exchange  for  Woman's  Work,  14,562 

Columbus  Woman's  Exchange,  13,000 

Minneapolis  Woman's  Industrial  Exchange,  12,791 

Topeka  Ladies'  Exchange,  10,000 

Milwaukee  Woman's  Industrial  Exchange,  9,824 

It  is  of  interest  also  to  note  the  total 
amount  paid  to  consigners  by  different 
exchanges  since  their  organization. 

The  following  table  will  show  this : 

New  York  Exchange  for  Woman's  Work 

(12  years),  $417,435 

Cincinnati  Women's  Exchange  (8  years),        175,130 
New  Orleans  Christian  Woman's  Exchange 

(10  years),  173,223 

Boston  Woman's  Educational  and  Indus- 
trial Union  (6  years),  148,588 
St.  Louis  Woman's  Exchange  (8  years),          55,000 
San  Francisco  Woman's  Exchange  (5  years) ,     50,000 
Rhode    Island  (Providence)  Exchange  for 

Woman's  Work  (10  years),  48,469 

Richmond   (Va.)   Exchange    for   Woman's 

Work  (7  years),  27,324 

St.  Joseph  (Mo.)  Exchange  for  Woman's 

Work  (6  years),  19,233 

The  Woman's  Exchange  regarded  as  an 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  171 

economic  factor  must  be  considered  in  three 
aspects:  (1)  As  a  business  enterprise; 

(2)  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  producer; 

(3)  from  the  standpoint  of  the  consumer. 
Viewed  purely  as  a  business  enterprise, 

the  exchange  is  a  failure.  Having  charity 
to  a  particular  class  as  its  object  pure  and 
simple,  no  other  result  could  be  expected. 
Aside  from  the  few  private  exchanges  that 
have  been  started  as  business  ventures,  but 
two  or  three  are  self-supporting.  That  at 
New  Orleans  has  been  self-supporting  from 
its  organization,  and  it  has  been  one  of  the 
best  organized  and  most  successful  of  all 
the  associations.  Some  of  the  organiza- 
tions go  so  far  as  to  say  that  self-support 
has  never  been  an  object  with  them.1  In 
the  great  majority  of  the  exchanges  a  com- 
mission of  ten  per  cent  is  charged  on  all 

1  "But  it  is  not  to  be  understood,  because  of  this  surplus, 
that  the  Woman's  Exchange  is  in  any  sense  self-supporting. 
Such  is  not  to  be  expected,  and  has  never  been  any  part  of  our 
scheme.  The  surplus  comes,  as  was  always  anticipated,  from 
public  benevolence."  Third  Annual  Report  Woman's  Exchange, 
San  Francisco,  California. 


172       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

goods  sold,  but  this  sum  is  inadequate  to 
meet  current  expenses.  The  exchange, 
therefore,  relies  for  its  support  upon  private 
contributions  and  the  ordinary  means 
adopted  by  other  benevolent  organizations 
for  increasing  their  revenues. 

The  treasurers'  reports  show  that  part  of 
the  funds  at  command  have  been  derived 
from  charity  balls,  calico  balls,  rose  shows, 
chrysanthemum  shows,  flower  festivals, 
baseball  benefits,  picnics,  excursions,  con- 
certs, bazars,  lectures,  readings,  Valentine's 
Day  cotillon  suppers,  concert  suppers, 
club  entertainments,  carnivals,  kermesses, 
sale  of  cook-books,  flower-seeds,  and 
Jenness-Miller  goods,  and  in  some  in- 
stances from  raffles. 

This  fact  alone  separates  the  exchange 
from  other  business  enterprises.  Having 
no  capital  to  invest,  it  must  pursue  a  hand- 
to-mouth  policy,  and  employ  means  for 
increasing  its  resources  which  would  never 
be  considered  by  other  business  houses. 
In  a  few  cases  where  exchanges  own  their 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  173 

buildings  and  sublet  parts  of  them,  or 
where  they  are  able  to  maintain  a  profitable 
lunch  department,  it  is  possible  more  nearly 
to  make  both  ends  meet.  Under  other 
circumstances  the  exchange  becomes  poorer 
as  its  business  increases,  and  there  is 
a  fresh  demand  for  subscriptions  and 
entertainments  to  meet  current  expenses. 
It  is  true  that  the  exchange  does  not  wish 
to  be  considered  a  business  enterprise  and 
be  judged  by  ordinary  business  rules,  but 
the  fact  that  it  enters  the  business  field  as  a 
competitor  with  other  enterprises  makes  it 
inevitable  that  it  be  judged  as  a  business 
house,  and  not  as  a  charitable  organization. 
The  persistence  with  which  different  ex- 
changes iterate  and  reiterate  the  statement 
that  their  object  is  charity  "to  needy 
gentlewomen,"  and  not  financial  return,  is 
evidence  of  a  consciousness  of  their  pre- 
sent ambiguous  position.  As  long  as  the 
exchange  undertakes  business  activities, 
it  cannot  escape  judgment  by  business 
principles. 


174       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

The  exchange  has  from  the  first  ham- 
pered itself  with  many  hard  and  pernicious 
conditions.  The  requirement  is  universal 
that  all  consignments  shall  be  made  by 
women.  Valuable  industrial  competition  is 
thus  shut  out,  and  the  exclusion  of  men 
from  the  exchange  is  as  unreasonable  as 
the  exclusion  of  women  from  competition  in 
other  occupations.  There  are  many  house- 
hold articles,  the  product  of  inventive  and 
artistic  talent,  which  are  the  handiwork  of 
men  and  should  find  place  in  the  exchange. 

The  second  restriction  found  in  the 
majority  of  exchanges  is  that  no  consign- 
ments shall  be  received  except  from  women 
who  state  that  they  are  dependent  for  entire 
or  partial  support  on  the  sale  of  the  articles 
offered.  Some  of  the  early  exchanges 
made  at  first  the  additional  requirement 
that  the  work  offered  should  be  by  women 
who  had  formerly  been  in  affluent  circum- 
stances but  were  rendered  self-supporting 
by  changes  of  circumstances.  The  latter 
requirement  has  now  been  abolished,  and 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  175 

in  a  few  of  the  more  recently  organized 
exchanges,  especially  in  the  exchange 
departments  of  the  Woman's  Educational 
and  Industrial  Unions,  the  requirement  of 
the  necessity  of  self-support  has  been 
abandoned.  Some  exchanges  also  modify 
this  condition  so  far  as  to  state  that  all  the 
proceeds  of  sales  made  for  those  not  de- 
pendent on  their  own  exertions  for  support 
must  be  appropriated  to  charitable  pur- 
poses, and  at  least  one  exchange  apologizes 
for  accepting  articles  from  young  girls  who 
had  the  necessaries,  though  not  the  luxuries, 
of  life,  on  the  ground  that  since  these  girls 
give  the  results  of  their  work  to  charity, 
the  exchange  is  teaching  them  a  valuable 
lesson. 

The  principle  is  a  pernicious  one,  and  is 
never  recognized  in  other  enterprises.  Just 
as  long  as  society  asks  concerning  any  article 
"Does  the  maker  need  money?"  and  not 
"Is  it  the  best  that  can  be  made  for  the 
price?"  just  so  long  a  premium  is  put  on 
mediocre  work.  It  is  a  question  never 


176       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

asked  in  other  kinds  of  business;  the  best 
article  is  sought,  regardless  of  personal 
considerations,  and  it  is  at  least  an  open 
question  whether  in  the  end  the  interests  of 
the  individuals  to  be  benefited  by  employ- 
ment are  not  thus  best  served.  If  the  same 
principle  were  applied  to  the  legal  and 
medical  professions,  society  would  be  de- 
prived of  the  services  of  many  whose  help 
is  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  its  best 
interests.  The  application  of  the  same 
principle  elsewhere  would  cause  every 
producer  to  withdraw  from  the  industrial 
field  as  soon  as  he  had  gained  a  compe- 
tence. The  result  would  often  be  that  as 
soon  as  an  individual  had  reached  great 
skill  in  producing  an  article,  he  would  be 
forced  to  step  aside  and  yield  his  place  to 
others. 

Moreover,  society  has  a  right  to  demand 
the  best  that  every  individual  can  give  it; 
and  just  as  long  as  the  exchange  persist- 
ently denies  itself  and  its  patrons  the 
benefit  of  the  best  work  wherever  it  is 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  177 

found,  regardless  of  money  considerations, 
just  so  long  it  will  fail  to  secure  the  best 
economic  results.  It  does  not  indeed  con- 
cern itself  with  these  results,  but  it  cannot 
thereby  escape  them. 

But  aside  from  the  injurious  economic 
effects  in  thus  limiting  production,  it  places 
the  whole  idea  of  work  on  a  wrong  basis. 
It  assumes  that  work  for  women  is  a  mis- 
fortune, not  the  birthright  inheritance  of 
every  individual,  and  that  therefore  they  are 
to  work  for  remuneration  only  when  com- 
pelled by  dire  necessity.  Moreover,  every 
individual  has  the  same  right  to  work  that 
he  has  to  life  itself,  and  to  shut  out  the  rich 
and  the  well-to-do  from  the  privilege  is  as 
unfair  to  the  individual  as  it  is  to  society. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  mem- 
bers of  this  class  are,  as  a  rule,  better  quali- 
fied for  work  than  are  other  classes,  since 
wealth  has  brought  opportunities  in  the 
direction  of  education  and  special  training, 
and  society  loses  in  the  same  proportion  as 
it  deprives  itself  of  their  services.  It  is  true 


178       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

also  that  the  higher  the  standard  set  in  any 
department  of  work,  the  greater  the  im- 
provement in  the  work  of  all  workers  in  the 
same  field. 

But  not  only  does  the  exchange  deprive 
itself  of  positive  good  in  thus  refusing  to 
accept  the  best  wherever  it  is  found,  regard- 
less of  money  considerations  —  it  puts  upon 
itself  the  positive  burden  of  enforcing  a 
questionable  condition.  "Necessity  for 
self-support"  is  a  relative  term;  and  when 
the  responsibility  of  the  decision  is  put  on 
the  consigner,  the  danger  is  incurred  on  the 
one  side  of  shutting  out  from  the  privilege  of 
the  exchange  many  who  are  unduly  con- 
scientious, and  on  the  other  side  of  encour- 
aging deceit  in  regard  to  their  necessities  on 
the  part  of  the  less  scrupulous.  The  ex- 
change must  be  ever  on  the  alert  to  guard 
against  imposition  and  fraud;  and  however 
much  it  may  disclaim  the  idea,  it  must  to 
a  certain  extent  make  itself  the  judge  of  its 
consigners'  necessities.  When  this  alterna- 
tive is  forced  upon  it,  it  must  perform  a  task 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  179 

difficult  in  proportion  to  its  delicacy,  and 
one  that  would  be  resented  in  the  business 
world  as  an  unwarranted  intrusion  into 
private  affairs.1  The  exchange  by  the  use 
of  these  methods  prejudices  itself  in  a  busi- 
ness way  in  the  eyes  of  many  who  would  be 
valuable  consigners. 

1  How  difficult  the  task  is  may  be  inferred  from  the  fol- 
lowing extracts  from  annual  reports  of  two  exchanges. 

"While  we  can  by  watchfulness  avoid  any  considerable 
number  of  such  transactions  (consignment  of  goods  by  other 
than  needy  and  distressed  gentlewomen)  on  the  part  of  the 
residents  of  this  coast,  we  are  utterly  helpless  in  cases  coming 
from  the  other  side  of  the  continent,  for  which  reason  I  think  it 
is  just  and  prudent  to  stop  such  exhibits  altogether." 

"  A  prevalent  opinion  in  the  community,  and  one  that  does 
us  no  little  harm,  is  that  we  help  many  well-to-do  women. 
It  is  a  very  difficult,  as  well  as  a  very  delicate  matter  to  learn 
just  how  needy  our  depositors  are;  we  do  not  attempt  to  do  so. 
We  assume  that  they  need  to  earn  money  from  the  fact  that 
they  desire  to  become  depositors.  But  we  gradually  become 
more  or  less  familiar  with  their  lives,  and  we  can  assure  you, 
as  a  rule,  our  money  is  well  paid  out. 

"Sometimes  people  unwittingly  make  very  damaging  state- 
ments. A  short  time  ago  a  lady  remarked  to  a  friend  that  the 
exchange  was  not  accomplishing  any  good  —  it  only  helped 
well-to-do  women  to  earn  pin-money,  and  verified  her  state- 
ment by  giving  the  name  of  a  wealthy  lady  who  said  she  was 
a  depositor.  The  matter  was  inquired  into  and  the  said  name 
was  found,  but  we  also  learned  that  the  ticket  had  been  bought 
to  give  to  a  needy  woman,  who  became  the  depositor." 


180       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

A  third  restriction  that  has  fettered  the 
exchange  has  been  the  geographical  limita- 
tion imposed  by  many  organizations.  Many 
receive  no  consignments  from  outside  the 
state,  some  New  England  exchanges  limit 
consignments  to  that  section,  a  few  restrict 
consignments  to  residents  of  the  city,  and 
others,  while  having  consigners  in  all  parts 
of  the  country,  congratulate  themselves,  as 
does  one  association,  that  "two  thirds  of  the 
proportion  of  money  paid  out  goes  to  the 
ladies  of  this  city."  Still  another  exchange, 
on  the  Pacific  coast,  complains  bitterly  of 
the  fact  that  articles  have  been  sent  to  it  by 
persons  outside  the  state,  and  not  depend- 
ent on  their  own  labors  for  support,  "  but 
who  would  speculate  upon  the  charitable 
spirit  of  the  public,"  and  its  president's 
report  recommends  that  it  "prohibit  ex- 
hibits from  the  East  altogether."  This  re- 
striction undoubtedly  grows  out  of  the  idea 
that  the  exchange  is  a  dispenser  of  charity 
and  should  therefore  aid  first  its  own  friends 
and  neighbors.  It  is  a  spirit  akin  to  that 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  181 

which  in  mediaeval  and  even  in  modern 
times  has  resented  the  entrance  of  new 
workers  into  any  occupation  or  community. 
But  it  must  again  be  insisted  that  while  the 
exchange  is  theoretically  only  a  benevolent 
association,  it  is  practically  a  business  house, 
and  as  such  must  be  judged  by  business 
principles.  The  most  successful  business 
firm  that  should  adopt  the  policy  of  purchas- 
ing its  supplies  only  within  the  state  or  city 
would  soon  find  its  trade  decreasing,  while 
for  a  new  house  to  adopt  the  policy  would 
be  suicidal.  Even  the  present  high  protect- 
ive tariff  is  not  so  absolutely  prohibitory  as 
is  this  provision  of  many  of  the  exchanges. 
Aside  from  other  disadvantages,  the  plan 
prevents  the  infusion  of  new  ideas  so  neces- 
sary to  healthy  growth,  and  it  renders  al- 
most impossible  that  market  criticism  which 
secures  the  best  industrial  results.  It  is  in 
distinct  violation  of  that  principle  of  com- 
mercial comity  between  states  which  led  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  to  prohibit  both 
import  and  export  duties  on  all  goods  ex- 


182       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

changed  between  the  states,  and  to  that 
extent  is  out  of  harmony  with  the  recognized 
policy  of  the  country  regarding  interstate 
exchange  of  commodities. 

A  fourth  economic  difficulty  is  the  fact 
that  the  exchange  has  no  capital.  It  does 
simply  a  commission  business,  and  it  is 
a  recipient  of  whatever  goods  are  sent  it 
which  reach  a  certain  standard;  its  attitude 
is  therefore  negative  rather  than  positive. 
Its  consigners  are  obliged  to  purchase  their 
own  materials  in  small  quantities  in  retail 
markets,  and  therefore  to  place  a  higher 
price  on  their  articles  than  would  be  the 
case  could  the  materials  be  purchased  by  or 
through  a  central  office.  This  lack  of  capi- 
tal and  its  passive  attitude  prevent  the  ex- 
change from  keeping  its  finger  on  the  pulse 
of  the  market;  there  is  no  connection  be- 
tween supply  and  demand,  and  no  way  of 
establishing  such  connection.  This  diffi- 
culty, which  is  encountered  in  all  business 
enterprises,  is  multiplied  by  the  number  of 
the  consigners.  The  exchange  refuses  to 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  183 

accept  articles  if  they  do  not  reach  a  fixed 
standard,  but  not  because  the  market  is 
glutted.  The  loss  accruing  from  an  over- 
stocked market,  it  is  true,  falls  immediately 
on  the  consigners  rather  than  on  the  ex- 
change, but  the  exchange  suffers  directly 
through  the  loss  of  the  commission  retained 
on  all  goods  sold,  and  indirectly  in  acquir- 
ing the  reputation  as  a  business  house  of 
keeping  in  stock  articles  not  in  demand  and 
of  failing  to  supply  the  market  with  others 
that  are. 

The  exchange  as  a  business  enterprise  is 
also  open  to  other  criticisms.  It  is  not  self- 
supporting,  and  therefore  gives  a  partial 
support  to  women  who  have  come  into 
competition  with  women  not  receiving  the 
assistance  of  the  exchange.  The  well- 
meant  charity  is  thus  instrumental  in 
keeping  at  a  low  rate  the  earnings  of  women 
who  do  not  receive  such  partial  support. 
Many  women  are  too  much  the  victims  of 
prejudice  and  false  pride  to  come  out  openly 
as  wage-earners,  and  to  these  the  exchange 


184       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

gives  its  assistance,  to  the  disadvantage  of 
those  who  struggle  on  unaided  by  it.  It 
has  employed  "gentlewomen"  in  its  sal- 
aried positions,  and  by  this  restriction 
practically  carried  out,  though  not  em- 
bodied in  its  rules,  it  has  deprived  itself  of 
the  services  of  some  who  would  have  been 
of  valuable  assistance  through  the  business 
experience  and  executive  ability  they  could 
have  brought  to  bear  on  this  work.  It  has 
required  that  all  its  consigners  shall  be 
known  by  number  and  not  by  name,  thus 
allying  itself,  as  regards  one  custom,  with 
penal  and  reformatory  institutions.  The 
exchange  by  its  limitations  has  encouraged 
the  idea  that  women  can  work  by  stealth 
without  being  guilty  of  moral  cowardice, 
and  it  has  fostered  the  spirit  that  carries 
lunches  in  music-rolls,  calls  for  laundry- 
work  only  after  dark,  and  does  not  receive 
as  boarders  or  lodgers  wage-earning  women. 
It  has  countenanced  a  fictitious  social 
aristocracy  by  referring  so  uniformly  to  its 
consigners  as  "needy  gentlewomen."  It 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  185 

has  said  in  effect,  "  work  for  remuneration  is 
honorable  for  all  men;  work  for  remunera- 
tion is  honorable  for  women  only  when 
necessity  compels  it." 

But  while  the  exchange  is  open  to  serious 
criticism  from  a  business  point  of  view,  it 
has  accomplished  much  and  has  in  it  still 
greater  possibilities.  It  has  set  a  high 
standard  for  work,  and  insisted  that  this 
standard  should  be  reached  by  every  con- 
signer not  only  once  or  generally,  but 
invariably.  It  has  maintained  this  standard 
in  the  face  of  hostile  criticism  and  the 
feeling  that  a  charitable  organization  ought 
to  accept  poor  work  if  those  presenting  it 
are  in  need  of  money.  It  has  shown  that 
success  in  work  cannot  be  attained  by  a 
simple  desire  for  it  or  need  of  it  pecuniarily. 
It  has  taught  that  accuracy,  scientific 
knowledge,  artistic  training,  habits  of  ob- 
servation, good  judgment,  courage  and 
perseverance  are  better  staffs  in  reaching 
success  than  reliance  upon  haphazard 
-  methods  and  the  compliments  of  flattering 


186       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

friends.  It  has  raised  the  standard  of 
decorative  and  artistic  needle-work  by  in- 
corporating into  its  rules  a  refusal  to  accept 
calico  patchwork,  wax,  leather,  hair,  feather 
rice,  spatter,  splinter,  and  cardboard  work. 
It  has  taught  many  women  that  a  model 
recipe  for  cake  is  not  "A  few  eggs,  a  little 
milk,  a  lump  of  butter,  a  pinch  of  salt, 
sweetening  to  taste,  flour  enough  to  thicken ; 
give  a  good  beating  and  bake  according 
to  judgment."  More  than  all  this,  it  has 
pointed  out  to  women  a  means  of  support 
that  can  be  carried  on  within  their  own 
homes,  and  is  perfectly  compatible  with 
other  work  necessarily  performed  there.  It 
has  in  effect  opened  up  a  new  occupation  to 
women,  in  that  it  has  taught  them  that  their 
accomplishments  may  become  of  pecuniary 
value,  and  a  talent  for  the  more  prosaic  do- 
mestic duties  be  turned  into  a  fine  art  and 
made  remunerative.  It  has  enabled  many 
women  who  have  a  taste  for  household 
employments  in  their  various  forms  to  take 
up  such  occupations  as  a  business,  when 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  187 

they  would  otherwise  have  drifted  into 
other  occupations  for  which  they  have  had 
no  inclination.  The  exchange  thus  assumes 
a  not  unimportant  place  in  the  history  of 
woman's  occupations.  The  factory  system 
of  manufactures  transferred  the  labor  of 
many  women  from  the  home  of  the  pro- 
ducer to  the  business  establishment  of  a 
corporation.  The  anti-slavery  agitation  and 
the  founding  of  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary 
and  Oberlin  College  gave  women  a  more 
prominent  place  as  teachers  and  in  the 
professions.  The  Civil  War  opened  the 
doors  of  mercantile  pursuits.  It  has  been 
through  the  Woman's  Exchange  that  women 
have  been  taught  that  a  means  of  support 
lies  open  to  them  at  their  own  doors;  and 
thus  the  exchange  has  done  something  to 
relieve  the  pressure  in  over-crowded  occu- 
pations. 

The  advantage  that  has  been  taken  of 
this  new  idea  is  widespread.  The  sixteen 
thousand  consigners  on  the  books  of  the 
exchange  are  but  a  part  of  the  still  larger 


188       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

number  of  women  who  are  turning  to 
practical  advantage  their  tastes  for  sewing 
and  cooking  in  all  of  their  various  forms. 
Before  the  opening  of  the  exchange,  as 
still,  indeed,  women  seeking  remunerative 
employment  were  forced  to  go  into  one  of 
the  four  great  occupations  open  to  women 
—  work  in  factories,  teaching,  domestic 
service,  and  work  in  shops.  But  it  has  been 
impossible  for  all  women  desiring  occupa- 
tion to  find  it  in  these  four  great  classes  of 
employment.  Many  desire  employment, 
but  are  forced  to  carry  it  on  in  their  own 
homes;  others  have  no  taste  whatever  for 
any  of  the  lines  of  work  mentioned;  and 
conditions  under  which  many  kinds  of  work 
are  performed  render  other  occupations 
obnoxious  to  others;  still  others  prefer  work 
which  gives  greater  opportunity  for  the 
exercise  of  individual  taste  and  ingenuity 
than  do  some  of  these  occupations.  Such 
women  have  found  through  the  exchange  a 
means  of  support  and  opportunity  for  work 
which  they  could  not  find  elsewhere.  They 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  189 

are  learning  that  society  is  coming  to  respect 
more  the  woman  who  supports  herself  by 
making  good  bread,  cakes,  and  preserves 
than  the  woman  who  teaches  school  indif- 
ferently, gives  poor  elocutionary  perform- 
ances, or  becomes  a  mere  mechanical 
contrivance  in  a  shop  or  factory.  They 
are  finding  that  the  stamp  of  approval 
is  ultimately  to  be  put  on  the  way  work  is 
done  rather  than  on  the  occupation  itself. 
Thus  it  is  that  hundreds  of  women  from 
Maine  to  Texas  and  California  are  obtain- 
ing for  themselves  and  others  partial  or 
entire  support  by  making  and  offering  for 
sale,  either  through  business  houses  or 
private  orders,  cake,  bread,  preserved 
fruit,  salads,  desserts,  and  an  innumerable 
number  of  special  articles,  in  addition  to 
the  products  of  artistic  needle-work  and 
decorative  art-work.  Not  only  are  these 
articles  found  in  the  large  cities,  but  in 
country  villages  many  women  are  engaged 
in  such  work  and  often  find  a  ready  sale  for 
it  without  the  trouble  and  expense  of  send- 


190       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

ing  it  to  the  city  markets.  In  one  village  of 
only  five  hundred  inhabitants  one  young 
woman  makes  and  sells  daily  thirty  loaves 
of  bread.  In  a  small  Eastern  village  an- 
other bakes  and  sells  daily  from  thirty  to 
a  hundred  loaves  of  bread  according  to  the 
season,  and  cake  and  pastry  in  the  same 
proportion. 

The  demand  for  work  of  this  kind  is  as 
yet  limited,  and  therefore  the  net  profits  are 
in  most  cases  small;  yet  in  some  instances 
a  fair  competence  has  been  secured.  One 
person  in  a  country  town  has  made  a  hand- 
some living  by  making  chicken  salad  which 
has  been  sold  in  New  York  City.  Another 
has  cleared  four  hundred  dollars  each  sea- 
son by  making  preserves  and  jellies  on  pri- 
vate orders.  A  third  has  built  up  a  large 
business,  employing  from  three  to  five  as- 
sistants, in  making  cake.  Still  another, 
living  near  a  Southern  city,  has  built  up 
"an  exceedingly  remunerative  business"  by 
selling  to  city  grocers  pickles,  preserves, 
cakes  and  pies.  One  cause  given  for  her 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  191 

success  has  been  the  fact  that  "she  has 
allowed  no  imperfect  goods  to  be  sold; 
everything  has  been  the  best,  whether  she 
has  gained  or  lost  on  it."  A  fifth  has  netted 
one  thousand  dollars  a  year  by  preparing 
mince-meat  and  making  pies  of  every  de- 
scription; and  a  sixth  has,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  two  daughters,  netted  yearly  one 
thousand  five  hundred  dollars  above  all 
expenses,  except  rent,  in  preparing  fancy 
lunch  dishes  on  shortest  notice  and  dishes 
for  invalids.  Still  one  more  began  by  bor- 
rowing a  barrel  of  flour,  and  now  has  a 
salesroom  where  she  sells  daily  from  eighty 
to  a  hundred  dozen  Parker  House  rolls,  in 
addition  to  bread  made  in  every  conceivable 
way,  from  every  kind  of  grain.  More  mod- 
erate incomes  are  made  by  others  in  putting 
up  pure  fruit  juices  and  shrubs,  in  prepar- 
ing fresh  sweet  herbs,  in  making  Saratoga 
potatoes,  and  consomme  in  the  form  of 
jelly  ready  to  melt  and  serve.  So  successful 
have  been  these  ventures  that  some  of  those 
engaging  in  them  have  acquired  not  only 


192       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

a  financial  profit,  but  a  wide  reputation  for 
the  superiority  of  their  goods.  In  some  in- 
stances the  articles  made  are  included  in  the 
catalogue  of  goods  sold  by  the  leading  deal- 
ers in  fine  groceries  in  New  York  City. 

These  illustrations  have  been  taken  from 
the  single  department  of  domestic  work; 
similar  ones  could  be  given  from  the  class 
of  plain  and  fancy  needle-work  and  decora- 
tive art  work.  Surely  it  is  better  for  the 
individual  and  better  for  society  that  these 
persons  should  turn  to  useful  account  their 
various  talents,  rather  than  attempt  to  enter 
many  of  the  overcrowded  occupations  and 
do  work  for  which  they  have  neither  talent 
nor  inclination. 

But  not  only  is  the  exchange  directly 
and  indirectly  of  value  to  producers,  it  is  of 
equal  importance  to  consumers.  It  sim- 
plifies many  housekeeping  problems  in 
families  where  there  is  more  work  than  can 
be  performed  by  one  domestic  employee 
and  not  enough  for  two,  by  making  it 
possible  to  purchase  for  the  table  and  other 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  193 

household  purposes  many  articles  made  out 
of  the  house  of  the  consumer.  In  a  similar 
way  it  is  of  assistance  in  all  families  who  do 
"light  housekeeping."  It  also  enables 
them  to  purchase  articles  ready  for  use 
which  have  been  made  under  the  most 
favorable  conditions.  A  specific  example 
of  this  is  seen  in  the  preparation  of  fruit  for 
winter  use.  This  is  at  present  done  in  the 
family  of  each  consumer,  but  the  canning 
in  cities,  by  individual  families,  of  fruit, 
often  in  an  over-ripe  or  a  half-ripe  con- 
dition, is  as  anomalous  as  would  be  the 
making  to-day  of  dairy  products  in  the 
same  localities.  The  canning  factory  has 
come  into  existence  to  meet  the  demand, 
but  the  canning  factory  cannot  meet  the 
needs  of  private  families,  since  the  great 
perfection  as  regards  results  is  secured  only 
when  articles  are  handled  in  small  quan- 
tities. If  all  fruits  could  be  preserved  in 
the  localities  where  they  are  produced,  the 
consumer  would  gain  not  only  in  securing 
a  better  article  than  can  now  be  produced 


194       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

after  shipment,  but  the  cost  would  ulti- 
mately be  lessened,  since  fruit  could  be 
thus  preserved  at  less  expense  than  when 
it  is  shipped  to  cities  and  there  sold  at  a 
price  including  cost  of  transportation  and 
high  rents.  Ripe  fruit  demands  the  most 
speedy  and  therefore  the  most  expensive 
modes  of  transportation;  preserved  fruits 
can  be  shipped  at  leisure,  by  inexpensive 
methods.  The  consumer  must  also  be 
indirectly  benefited  as  well  as  the  producer, 
from  the  fact  that  such  a  policy  would  pre- 
vent a  glut  in  the  market  of  such  perishable 
articles  and  the  consequent  discourage- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  producer,  some- 
times ending  in  a  resolution  to  grow  no 
more  fruit  for  market,  owing  to  the  loss 
entailed.  What  is  true  of  the  purchase  of 
fruit  thus  prepared  is  true  also  of  numerous 
other  articles.  Scores  of  articles  such  as 
boned  turkey,  calf's-foot  jelly,  chicken 
jelly,  chicken  broth,  chicken  croquettes 
and  chicken  salad,  pressed  veal,  mince- 
meat, bouillon,  plum  pudding  and  many 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  195 

miscellaneous  articles  could  be  thus  pro- 
duced under  more  advantageous  conditions 
than  at  present.  Moreover,  many  aban- 
doned farms  could  be  utilized  as  fruit 
farms,  or  for  other  purposes,  which  are 
now  too  remote  from  shipping  centres  to 
permit  the  transportation  of  ripe  fruit,  but 
could  be  made  of  use  through  the  exchange. 
Another  advantage  gained  by  the  con- 
sumers is  that  they  are  thus  able  to  take 
advantage  of  specialized  labor.  This, 
again,  is  evident  in  the  domestic  depart- 
ment. The  consumer  is  usually  obliged  to 
depend  on  the  skill  of  a  single  cook  or  baker, 
while  through  the  exchange  the  works  of 
many  producers  are  placed  side  by  side  in 
competition,  and  thus  in  the  end  the  highest 
standard  is  secured.  For  both  producer 
and  consumer,  therefore,  the  exchange  is 
of  advantage  in  thus  affording  an  avenue 
for  specialized  work.  It  thus  makes  pos- 
sible to  a  certain  extent  the  division  of  labor 
which  has  been  but  partially  accomplished 
in  the  household. 


196       PROGRESS  IN  THE  HOUSEHOLD 

Another  field  of  work  open  to  the  ex- 
change is  in  becoming  a  medium  for  the 
exchange  of  workers  as  well  as  of  work  - 
of  affording  a  means  of  communication 
between  workers  in  different  lines  or  be- 
tween the  producer  and  consumer.  Very 
much  of  the  work  now  done  in  the  house  by 
those  living  there  could  be  done  to  better 
advantage  by  those  coming  in  from  outside. 
Special  skill  in  arranging  rooms,  hanging 
pictures,  preparing  for  lunches,  teas,  or 
other  social  entertainments,  repairing  fur- 
niture and  wardrobes,  fine  laundry-work, 
special  table-service,  etc.,  could  be  per- 
formed for  housekeepers  by  those  who 
retain  their  own  homes  and  yet  are  able  and 
anxious  to  give  a  few  hours  daily  to  outside 
work.  The  exchange,  through  a  bureau 
of  information,  could  accomplish  much  for 
both  those  wishing  work  and  those  wishing 
workers,  as  well  as  in  a  business  way  for 
itself.  In  many  ways,  it  is  thus  seen,  the 
exchange  is  in  harmony  with  the  economic 
and  industrial  development  of  the  time.  As 


THE  WOMAN'S  EXCHANGE  197 

far  as  this  is  true  it  has  in  it  the  elements 
of  permanence.  Wherever  it  runs  at  right 
angles  to  present  economic  tendencies,  it 
must  be  open  to  criticism  and  also  contain 
in  itself  the  germs  of  subsequent  failure. 

If  all  idea  of  charity  per  se  could  be 
eliminated  from  the  exchange,  if  the  word 
"gentlewoman"  could  be  dropped  from  the 
pages  of  its  reports,  the  by-law  limiting  con- 
signers to  self-supporting  women  stricken 
out,  its  consigners  known  by  name  instead 
of  by  number,  and  the  idea  abandoned 
that  it  is  to  help  women  to  help  themselves 
only  "when  misfortune  comes;"  if  it  could 
cease  to  be  supported  by  donations,  ker- 
messes,  charity  balls,  and  miscellaneous 
entertainments;  if  it  could  refuse  to  con- 
stitute itself  a  judge  of  its  consigners' 
necessities ;  if  the  name  could  be  changed  to 
Household  Exchange,  or  one  signifying  the 
character  of  the  goods  sold  rather  than  the 
nature  of  the  makers;  if,  in  other  words, 
the  Woman's  Exchange  could  be  put  on  a 
purely  business  basis  and  become  self-sup- 


198      PROGRESS   IN   THE   HOUSEHOLD 

porting,  it  would  cease  to  be  what  it  now  is, 
"a  palliative  for  the  ills  of  the  few,"  and 
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